


The Green Fields of France

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1679321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WWI AU featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler.  <i>The boys called her Angel because she always seemed to be there, golden and glorious, when they needed her the most.  She signed her letters home as Rose Tyler.</i></p><p>Title from an old Irish song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **In what is a complete departure from my usual style, I present for your amusement, a WWI AU featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler.**
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> **This is, for now, a one-shot, though I have ideas for extending it into a full-length fic.**
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> **As is always the case, Doctor Who, the Ninth Doctor, and Rose Tyler do not belong to me. Neither does WWI, or any events to which I might allude.**
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> **Please enjoy.**

The other ambulance drivers called her Bad Wolf because the bright red coat that she wore over her uniform reminded them of the Red Riding Hood story. The nurses called her Dear because they were busy and called all of the drivers that. The boys called her Angel because she always seemed to be there, golden and glorious, when they needed her the most. She signed her letters home as Rose Tyler.

In the summer of 1914, England was brought to its knees as Europe descended into war. The queen assured the people that they would be finished by Christmas, and that England would prevail.

They did not.

In 1915, England was hemorrhaging into the French countryside and Rose Tyler, the oldest child of Jaqueline and Peter Tyler, Earl of Powell, whose ties to the British Aristocracy went back to William the Conqueror was eighteen years old. For a girl for whom the only expectation was to grow into an able house-mistress and mother of children, the Great War was a baptism in fire and blood and mud.

She spent the harvest of 1914 as a land girl, breaking her back in the hot sun with the other women in the fields of her father's estates, for the men had already gone. In 1915 she began working in the hospitals in her village. She wrapped bandages, read to the sightless, spoke to the hopeless, and saw more death in that 12-month than ever she had experienced before. She watched men whose lungs were blistered by mustard gas drown on dry land in their own fluids. She watched bleed to death with no visible injuries. She watched men who had already died behind their eyes be told that they would return to the front to die in body as well.

When Rose Tyler turned 19 in 1916 she, like so many boys her age, volunteered to go to France.

"Why would you do this, Rose?" her mother whined.

"Those boys are no more English than I, mum," Rose said as she packed to leave. "If there's something that I can do, then I must."

"Your service to England is to uphold your family."

Rose turned to her mother, fury in her eyes. "Are you blind, woman? The world is changing and it's not just electric lights and the telephone. It's the Tommy gun and mustard gas and very lights. If we win this war, and God knows it doesn't seem like we will, but if we do, England will never be the same, do you realize that? If my contribution to England's future is to marry the son of an Earl or a Duke, let me tell you where they are, Mother. They are out there in France and they are dying."

Jackie's eyes filled with tears as she looked at her daughter, and Rose felt guilty for yelling. Of course her mother was just worried about her.

"I'm sorry, mum," she said, going to the other woman and wrapping her in a hug. "I know you're scared for me, but I have to do this. You understand, don't you?"

"What if something happens to you?" Jackie sniffled into Rose's shoulder.

Rose shook her head. "I won't tell you that nothing will happen to me because I can't. You know that. But I have to do this. I have to help however I can, and since they won't let me carry a rifle, I'll drive an ambulance. It's the life that I choose. It's not fun, and it's not smart. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say "no." You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away."

Jackie sighed and pushed her daughter out to arm's length where she could look at her. "I always knew we wouldn't be able to mold you into the proper shape for an Earl's daughter. Marriage and children. I think I always knew that was too small for you. Go to France. Write me every week, but please, please be careful."

"I love you, mum."

~?~?~?~?~

France was ugly, dirty and terrifying. They were threatened with death every day, none of them had had a real bath in weeks, their clothes were crawling with lice, there were bullet holes and shrapnel in the side of their ambulances, and every muscle ached each morning when they woke up.

Rose was, oddly, having the time of her life. The women with whom she was living were rude, high-spirited, and brilliant. There was the red-headed Donna, the oldest of the bunch who had a big laugh and a motherly temperament when most they needed it. There was sweet Martha, who had the soul of a nurse, but the skin colour of a woman who would probably not be allowed into a university in her lifetime. There was fearless Dorothy who, for reasons best known to herself, preferred to be known as Ace. She seemed to have a knack for avoiding mines and explosions better than any single human Rose had ever met. There was bubbly Peri, and brave Tegan, and the indomitable Leela, and clever Zoe. Rose found that, despite the fact that they were all from different classes (Donna was the niece of a Duke, and Martha the daughter of a butcher) they had formed an extraordinarily close-knit friendship. They slept in the dormitory together, ate their meals together, and worked together all day.

On days that they were not required on the front lines, the girls scrubbed the hospital, they rolled bandages, they did anything that the nurses and doctors directed them to do, and they did it while singing, laughing and arguing over nothing important. As she had done in Powell, Rose read to the boys, sometimes it was letters from home, and other times it was a book that they carried with them. She wrote letters home for those who could not, and she simply sat and held the hands of those who would never wake again.

When the bombs fell and the guns fired, they found themselves in the mud and blood and horror of the Western Front. Rose drove an old clunker that had delivered milk in sweeter days. Despite being small, she was very strong and was able to lift a man on her own from the hell of the trenches into the relative haven of her ambulance. Their job was to get in and get out with as many as they possibly could without getting blown up or shot along the way.

Rose had been in France for two weeks when she met Timothy Latimer. He wasn't on the lines- not yet, anyway. The front had been quiet for two days running, so Rose and the other drivers were helping the nurses with the new recruits. They were weighed, measured, deloused, and given their new clothing, a hot meal, and a moderately quiet bed for a night before being shipped en masse to the front.

Rose found the pretty young man sitting by himself, turning an old silver pocket watch over and over in his shaking fingers.

"That's a beautiful watch," she said, sitting down beside him without invitation. "Is it your father's?"

He looked up at her, and she was arrested- he had an angel's face. It was far too young for the 17 that he must be, but his eyes were bright blue and much older than his years.

"No," he said softly. "It belonged to one of my masters at Farringham Academy where I went to school. He gave it to me the night the school burned down."

"That sounds absolutely dreadful."

The two sat in silence for a long time, listening to the brief peace of France on that night when no bombs were falling.

~?~?~?~?~

Shells were falling like rain as Rose drove like the hounds of Hell were after because, in a way, they were. She had three boys in the back of her ambulance, and she had sworn that she would get them to safety. Ahead of her, however, she could see one more. Buried on the muck, but she could see him moving. One more life for the Bad Wolf today, she thought to herself with a fierce smile.

She stopped and left the vehicle idling as she leapt out and checked on the boy. She couldn't move him if his spine were in trouble, but he seemed to be whole enough.

"What's your name then?" she asked as she began to shift him so that she could sling him into her ambulance.

"Wilson," he gasped.

"Well then, Wilson, no more mucking about. You've been laying down on the job too much, you hear?"

He gave her a weak laugh, and Rose smiled at him.

"All right then, one moment, Wilson. I'll get you a blanket," she said and left his side to return to her old vehicle.

Suddenly, without warning, someone grabbed her hand.

"Run," an unfamiliar voice barked, tugging her away from her ambulance and the boys inside it.

Whoever was pulling her was much stronger than she, and she had little choice but to run or be dragged, so Rose ran. Not ten seconds later, the world exploded. The man who had pulled her away shoved her to the ground and covered her with his own body as the ground shook. It seemed to last forever, but, objectively, Rose knew that it could only have been a minute or two, but the silence was oppressive afterwards. When finally he rolled away from her, and Rose was able to sit up, and look around, the lack of explosions nearly hurt her ears.

"Where's my ambulance?" she said, looking around. There was no sign of the old milk lorry. "Where's Wilson?"

"Who's Wilson?" the man who had saved her asked.

For the first time, she looked at him. He was tall with dark hair in a severely short cut that put his slightly prominent ears on display. He was, really, too old to be on the front, and something in his eyes told her that this was not his first war.

"He was the boy that I was… the one I was trying to help."

"Wilson's dead," the man said, heavily.

Rose turned on the spot as though to find Wilson and the other boys and point them out. To prove the lie to this man whose name she didn't know, but even her ambulance was gone from the scene. Everything had been destroyed. There would be no bodies to ship home to those four boys' mothers.

Rose threw herself into the stranger's arms and wept like a child. He held her, patting her back awkwardly and stroking her blond hair with his rough hands. It was there that Donna and Martha found her.

"What have you done to our little Wolf?" Donna asked suspiciously.

Rose had managed to calm herself, and Donna's sharp voice was the final factor that brought her back to herself. She pushed away from the broad chest on which she had been leaning and turned to her friends.

"He saved my life, Donna. My ambulance was destroyed in the shelling and he got me away from it."

Donna's demeanor changed in an instant from suspicious to motherly. "Was that what you were crying over, sweetheart? Your close call?"

"No." Rose shook her head. "There were three boys in the back, and one that I was trying to get in when it was hit. I was crying over them."

Donna pulled Rose into a hug. Rose heard Martha thanking her rescuer, but could not hear the specifics because Donna was murmuring sweetness to her, promising to take her back to the hospital and the dormitories where she could have a bit of a cry on her own. As Donna pulled her and Martha away, Rose realized that she hadn't caught the name of the man who had saved her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I got so much truly wonderful feedback on this story that I'm continuing it. I'm doing something that I have NEVER done before, and uploading a story as it is written, rather than once it's complete, so we'll see how that goes.**
> 
> **Though, that said, I'm several chapters ahead of this point in the writing, but will only be uploading once a week. For Fanfiction Friday!**
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> **I don't know how long this is going to end up being. I know where it's going, but not really how I'm going to get there. I'm on this journey too!**
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> **Please enjoy. Reviews are always appreciated, but even if I just made you smile, this whole thing is worth it.**

Three weeks passed. Rose got a new ambulance- an old baker's lorry this time- and was able to smile again. She still woke sometimes to the image of young Wilson's eyes fading before her own, but just as often she woke to the fading feel of strong arms around her and rough hands tangling in her hair.

She'd been back to the front- Donna had been afraid that she wouldn't be able to go back, but Ace had sat her down and had a long, frank talk about courage, and Rose had gone. She'd saved more lives than she'd lost and, as she told her mother, the boys were not allowed to turn tail and run when they lost a man, and neither would she.

She did, however, keep a look out for a closely-shorn head of dark hair and slightly over-large ears, but she had never found her rescuer again in her trips back to the trenches.

Timothy's unit had drawn a week behind the lines, and Rose was pleased to see it. The young man with the pocket watch had been on the lines for six months and the two of them had become friends. He'd come back to the hospital with some fairly nastily gassed lungs shortly after arriving, and some three months before, his unit had been shelled. She'd gone to him that time, rather than him finding her and she'd found him shaking, and gripping his pocket watch (now tarnished with water and mud) like a lifeline.

"I heard you saved a lot of lives," she'd said to him, sitting beside his bed.

"I... I saw the shells coming in the reflection of the watch." His voice had been shaky, but devoid of emotion. "I didn't save them all."

"I haven't either," she'd said, and had taken the hand that was not holding his watch. He had gripped her hand like it was a line to sanity.

Donna had noticed their growing friendship and had teased Rose about becoming fond of the boy, while also reminding her of the rules against fraternization in the same breath.

Rose had laughed. She very much liked Tim Latimer, but her feelings for him were much more maternal than passionate. She felt for him much as she felt for her young brother Tony, who was 12 and still at home, wishing to be at war where his sister was, as foolish young boys so often did.

When the boys came back to the camp, Rose, Zoe, Ace, and Peri were free and watched them march in. They all four grinned at the boys and waved at some that had become their friends. Rose winked at Tim, who looked less shaky than he had the last time and smiled back at her. Her eyes moved from the young man to the man walking behind him and her breath froze in her chest. It was him- her rescuer. Without a pause or a thought for propriety, Rose ran up to him as he marched in the ranks.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, stopping in front of him so that he was forced to stop or walk right into her. The rest of the regiment simply moved around them as though they were a boulder in the stream. She knew it was an asinine question, but it was all she could think of.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asked with a carefully masked sneer. She knew he was making fun of her, but she stood under it, hundreds of years of aristocracy stiffening her spine.

"I live here."

"Well what do you do that for?"

Rose glared at him for a long moment. "Oh, you know, the location is brilliant. The neighbors are a bit noisy but it's handy for the shops."

He looked at her in utter shock before giving a sharp bark of laughter. He took his fist and knocked against her forehead, an action that might have made her want to slap him even without his next words.

"There is something in your head then, is there? Couldn't have proved it by me the last time we met."

"Are you always this rude?"

"That's me," he said, giving her a crooked grin that, for unknown reasons sent electricity through her chest. "Rude and not-ginger. You going to stand there all day or are you going to let me pass? I was actually looking forward to the de-lousing."

Rose stood her ground. "Who are you?"

From behind her, a member of Tim's regiment called out. "You going to come in here, Doctor? Do you need a hand?"

"I'm all right, Sullivan, you go on, I'll catch you up," he (the Doctor) called back. He then looked at Rose. "I'm the Doctor, if you must know."

"Doctor what? And if you're a doctor, why aren't you working in the hospital?"

"Doctor Alistair Chesterton, if it matters. And because field medics are more necessary than hospital doctors, and there are fewer of us. You done?"

Rose could, honestly, not think of anything else to keep him there talking to her (and couldn't think why she would want to, considering how horrible he had been to her). She stepped aside and allowed him to go on.

"Wait," she cried out when he reached the door. He turned to look at her, one eyebrow cocked. "Thank you," she said, uncertainly. "For saving me. Thank you."

His expression softened a fraction. "And who did I save?" he asked. "I didn't catch your name. I can only assume it isn't Little Wolf, and most of the boys call you Angel, which I doubt is correct either."

"You've asked about me?" she said, an odd warmth rising in her chest.

"I saved your life. Might have made me a bit curious."

"It's Rose. Rose Tyler."

Both of his eyebrows raised, and there was an odd hesitation in him now that made Rose want to sigh. Her surname could cause that reaction in the most self-possessed of individuals, and it always irritated her.

His shock only lasted a moment, however, before he was grinning cheekily at her again. "Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler," he said, and made a gesture as though he were doffing a cap that he was not wearing.

Suddenly he cocked his head, as though hearing something. A moment later (Rose wondered if it was his big ears that had caught it first) Rose heard it too. The whistle of falling shells.

"Run for your life," he said, as she did just that to gather her supplies to take her ambulance back to the front.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A/N: If you were ever wondering, there's nothing quite as bad as wanting your characters to start kissing and having them decide to just fight for an entire chapter instead.**
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> **If you want to know what a chapter written in that state looks like, I present for your pleasure, Exhibit A.**
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> **Happy Fanfiction Friday, everyone!**
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> **Reviews are always welcome (if you haven't heard, I answer every one of them), but as ever, if it made you happy, then I'm happy!**

The shelling continued through the night. Rose felt bad for the boys who had been hoping for a quiet reprieve. She prayed to gods that she didn't really believe in that there was one night during their respite that was quiet and that they were allowed to sleep through in clean, dry sheets without waking shivering from a cold more internal than external.

She no longer said her nightly prayers, as were taught her by her mother. The War had given her new gods- the God of Order, the God of Death, the God of Luck, and the God of Hope.

The only one she liked was Hope.

That night, it seemed that the God of Hope had abandoned her, however. She had spent the night racing back and forth from the front to the hospital as the bombs whistled overhead and the guns had thundered.

A boy she had become friends with named Mickey Smith had been hit. She had knelt in the mud beside him, talking quietly and assessing his injuries through the mud and blood. He had reached up to stroke her hair (he'd always thought she was pretty, Rose knew, and in his delirium he was more forward than would be his wont) when they had both seen that he had no arm from the elbow down. He'd passed out then, and Rose had nearly lost her stomach.

A small, quiet, rather horrible voice in her mind rejoiced that he would be sent home. He would never have to face the Hell of the Great War again, and he would return with his life. The rest of her knew that he had little enough life to go back to, one-armed, poor, and unable to work.

And so Rose prayed to the generals. She prayed to the King. She prayed to the men plotting the War that was her daily life that her boys (and in her mind every one of them was hers) could sleep in peace for one night.

When finally the guns fell silent as the sun peeked out from the horizon and Donna told her that if she got behind the wheel of her ambulance one more time she would ship Rose home and never let her come back, Rose stripped out of her clothes, had a fast bath, and dragged herself to the mess for a very early breakfast. There would be no sleep for her- she had gotten a few snatches in the night when Donna had insisted, totaling approximately two hours- because there was work to do, so she directed herself straight to the coffee, forgoing her preferred stimulant, tea.

Rose realized, after a few long moments of staring at the coffee, that she was not as awake as she could have wished. From behind her there came a cough which spurred her back into life. She turned and was met by a pair of crystal-blue eyes in the striking face of Doctor Alistair Chesterton. What was it about the man that he always seemed to be laughing at her?

"Are you going to pour some coffee or just stare at it? I don't think that absorbing it through osmosis is an option."

Rose blushed and quickly poured herself a cup of the bitter, black sludge and topped it with a small amount of milk (tinned). The lack of real milk had forced her to learn to drink her tea black, but she'd never learned to take coffee that way and would even stomach the milk that was available if necessary.

She hustled away to a seat in the nearly empty mess hall. In fact, it was empty save for herself and Doctor Chesterton. Rose supposed that was all right- it meant that he wouldn't have to sit near her as he seemed to find her company such an irritant.

It surprised her, then, that he sat himself down with his tea across the table from her.

"You look dreadful," he said with what she was learning was a typical lack of tact.

"Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Dr. Chesterton," she said in a voice that had been long trained to end an unpleasant conversation.

It did not work on this man, however, and he continued. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"I don't see how it's any of your business, but yes, I slept a few hours."

"A few hours isn't enough, and it's my business because I'm responsible for those boys, and you could run them off a cliff in your ambulance because you haven't gotten enough sleep."

Rose's voice went cold and haughty. "I would never put those boys at greater risk than necessary, Doctor Chesterton." She wanted to lash out at him for implying such a thing. "What about you? Up at this hour you can't have slept much either. Wouldn't fatigue be just as dangerous to a Doctor as an ambulance driver?"

"I don't need much sleep, me," the Doctor said, proudly. Rose caught a hint of an accent from Manchester area that he was apparently fairly good at hiding. "It's something you learn in the trenches. But the drivers, they all sleep in clean beds every night. Can't imagine you've had much practice with sleepless nights," he sneered.

Rose stood, fire, ice, and tears in her eyes. "How dare you?" In her voice was all of the power of her estimable surname and her own, not inconsiderable, personality. "How dare you insult what we do? There is not a woman here who would not have gone to the trenches if called, and you would imply that we are cowards? That we are not fighting this war alongside you? Nothing gives you that right. Not your service in the trenches, not your profession, not your name. If you ever dare to insult one of us again, you will regret it, I promise you that."

With that final threat, Rose left him alone.

~?~?~?~?~

Even as he spoke, the Doctor (for so he preferred to be called- what good was a family name when all one's family was dead, he often asked) knew that he was blundering the conversation.

She was right- he had a feeling that she usually was- he was fatigued. The previous night, despite the relative quiet of the barracks in comparison to the trenches, he found himself unable to stay asleep. His usual nightmares of fire and blood and war had a new element- a golden-haired girl with eyes like cognac and lips the colour of her namesake and a coat of scarlet dying in those fires and wars. He had woken gasping every quarter hour, and had finally given up the attempt as the first golden rays of the sun were turning the clouds a soft pink. He had gone in search of tea (for what could help him so much as his favourite super-heated infusion of tannins and free-radicals) and come across the very person who had so disturbed his sleep staring at the coffee as though it held some deep secrets.

She had looked tired, and he had only wanted to reassure himself that she was well. He was not, however, well-versed in tact and his sleep-deprived state made the whole thing worse.

He could not imagine why he had said the things he had- he had nothing but respect for the women who drove the ambulances and ran the hospitals. Even the women who were staying at home and organizing England in the absence of the men who filled the trenches were quite fantastic and he would never, under ordinary circumstances, have said anything like what he had said to Rose Tyler. He didn't even think it.

As he watched her walk away, well-deserved fury emanating from her in what he whimsically thought of as a halo of golden light, he wondered what was wrong with him. Once she left, he thumped his forehead against the wooden table.

He felt like a schoolboy around Rose Tyler- as though he wanted desperately to impress the pretty girl, but every time he opened his mouth, something horrible or (in this most recent case) unforgivable came out.

He sat up and shook his head. It was better this way, he decided. He was an old soldier and absolutely did not need to be having schoolboy feelings for the eldest daughter of an Earl- even more so because he knew that, were she to fraternize with him, she would be sent home in an instant.

He would just have to keep his distance from the lovely angel, Rose Tyler. First though, he really should apologize. Not until he'd had some sleep, however.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A very happy Fanfiction Friday to you.**
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> **For your enjoyment, another installment with Dr. Chesterton and Lady Rose Tyler.**
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> **The lines at the end in italics are the opening lines of The Signalman by Charles Dickens.**
> 
> **Doctor Who, Charles Dickens and all things lovely belong to their respective owners, none of whom are me.**
> 
> **Reviews are always appreciated, but I'd probably continue to post without them, so no one is under any obligation!**

Rose's righteous fury cut through her exhaustion and carried her through the worst of her chores in the hospital. By midday, however, even her white-hot anger could not keep her from making mistakes as she labeled medicine bottles and Donna caught wise.

"Rose Marion Tyler," Donna hissed. "You have mislabeled the last three bottles running. If you keep that up the nurses will have words."

Rose looked at the bottle in her hand which she knew was filled with morphia, but which she had labeled "iodine." For no reason at all, her eyes filled with tears.

"Rose, what's wrong?" Donna asked, worried.

"I don't... Donna, do you think I can have something a bit less... something where I won't ruin anything if I make a mistake. I'm so sorry, my head isn't together today. Could I, maybe, read to the boys on the ward or something instead?" Rose asked, plaintively.

"Of course," Donna said gently. "And you're on emergency call only today, all right? I don't want you behind the wheel unless it's absolutely necessary. You understand?"

"Of course. Thank you so much, Donna." Impulsively, Rose wrapped her arms around Donna's waist for a quick hug and then pulled away. The ginger woman's green eyes were wide and she was blushing slightly, but she, nevertheless, looked pleased.

"Get on with you then," she said, and Rose left, a spring in her step again.

The vicar in the village had given the women of the hospital access to his personal library, and Rose had taken great advantage. Not all of the girls were interested in literature, but Martha had a quiet love of Shakespeare. Peri and Ace preferred to spend their rare free time out-of-doors. Zoe preferred the medical texts that the doctors kept. She said they were brilliant, though the other girls thought she was quite mad. Tegan enjoyed adventure stories, particularly ones that involved flight or aeroplanes, and Donna loved mysteries.

Rose carried an anthology of some of Charles Dickens' short stories with her. It was newly published, and the vicar had been so kind to let her borrow it. She treated it like a beautiful treasure, but it was one she wanted to share with her boys, so she carried it to them, smiling that she could give them something so lovely- even if very few of them would love it as she did.

At the entrance to the ward Rose heard voices. She stopped in the doorway and very nearly turned away when she found that Dr. Chesterton was seated at Mickey's bedside, examining his arm and engaging him in what appeared to be an amusing conversation. Her curiosity got the better of her, however, and she listened.

"Then I said," Dr. Chesterton hesitated and the tips of his ears flamed. "Doesn't matter what I said exactly," he prevaricated roughly, "but it was bad. Downright insulting. She as good as called me an arse and walked out like an avenging angel."

"She didn't slap you?" Mickey asked, looking surprised.

"No, though she'd have been well within her rights to."

"I should do it for her. You're an idiot, Doctor."

"Nah, look at you. You're 'armless," the Doctor said with a manic grin.

Mickey chuckled ruefully, and then sobered. "You'll apologize to her, yeah? 'Cause... Rose is special, Doctor. She's not brought down by this place, she lifts people up, you know?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said softly. "I'll apologize. First chance I get. But I want to talk about you first. Do you know what you'll do when you get home?"

Mickey pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. He didn't look sorry for himself or angry with the world, merely as though he were working on a serious problem to which he was not finding an answer.

"No," he admitted. "M' dad ran a livery stable before he died, and as far as I know mum's and my gran are keeping it going. They... they don't write." Mickey blushed slightly. "Don't read either, not much anyway, but there's not a lot of room for a cripple in a stable."

"Do you read, Mickey?"

"Oh yes. My mum thought it was important for me to go to school and always made it possible."

"She's a good woman, your mum. What about sums, are you good with those?"

"I'm... yeah," Mickey admitted again, trying to remain modest. "I'm... pretty good with numbers."

"Well, you see," the Doctor said, sounding hesitant. Rose could tell, however, that it was an act to make Mickey a bit more comfortable. "I've this friend in London, name of Adric, and he runs a little store making and selling things of his own design."

"An artist?"

"An inventor, actually. He's brilliant, is Adric, but he's got no head for practicalities. He needs someone to help him with the books- be sure he's not spending more money than he's making, keep him supplied with bits and bobs. You understand?"

For the first time since the conversation had turned to Mickey's future, his eyes lit with hope. The Doctor smiled. He quite liked hope.

"I understand, yeah," Mickey said, quickly. "But you think," he glanced down at his arm, "you think he'd take me on?"

"Corporal Smith, I think he'd adore you." The Doctor pulled a small notepad from one of his pockets as well as a stub of a pencil and wrote a direction on the paper. "When you get back to London, you look him up. I'll write to let him know you're coming, all right?"

"Thank you, Doctor," Mickey said, holding the paper in his good hand like it was a ticket to heaven itself. "You don't know what it means to me."

"It's nothing," Dr. Chesterton dismissed. "I'll leave you now. The doctors here did a fine job. You'll be all right. I'm sure you will."

"Yeah," was all that Mickey could say.

From the doorway, Rose watched the interaction as tears built behind her eyes. He hadn't apologized to her, but the fact that he had expressed remorse had made her heart sing. But it was the compassion that he had shown Mickey Smith that had found some crack in her desire to hate the old, grumbling sod and levered it wide open exposing her heart to his actions. He'd shown such respect and generosity to Mickey that Rose thought she might just love him. He'd given the young man hope in a time when hope was a rarer commodity than sugar.

Then, before Rose could compose herself, Dr. Chesterton himself was before her, looking as surprised to see her as she had been to see him.

"Ms. Tyler," he greeted her, awkwardly.

"Dr. Chesterton," she answered.

He shifted on his feet for a moment, not quite meeting her eyes. "May I speak to you for a moment? In... in private?" He glanced around the room at the boys watching him with interested eyes, and none more so than Mickey Smith. At Rose's small nod, he took her arm and led her back into the hallway and away from the door, to help keep them from being overheard.

"I..." he stumbled. He wanted to tell her how highly he regarded her but, in her presence, as ever, his tongue seemed to abandon him. He'd been told that he was the sort who could save the Earth with only a few words, but, standing before Rose Tyler, he felt breathless and slow-witted.

"I just wanted to tell you," he began again, "that I'm sorry for what I said this morning. It was not just insulting to you and the other women here, but it was completely wrong. It's not an excuse but, as you suspected, I was too tired this morning to be in my right mind. Will you please forgive an old, tired soldier his slip?"

"Why were you talking about me with Mickey?" Rose asked. Her voice held no censure, merely curiosity, but the Doctor's ears flamed again.

"I... well... he brought you up first and I thought... they say confession is good for the soul."

Rose smiled at that and for the first time Dr. Chesterton saw something that he had been only told about. He'd heard the boys talking about their Angel's smile and how it could light the trenches more completely than the very lights themselves. He'd shrugged their descriptions off as the needlessly poetic twaddle of young men too far from their own sweethearts. However, when faced with the phenomenon himself, the Doctor found that the boys were, if anything, not lyrical enough. The Doctor felt something spark in his chest in some place that he had long thought cold and dead.

"Of course I forgive you, Dr. Chesterton," she said, and those words made everything else in the world- the war, the death and pain, the politics, and the human folly- fade to nothing. "Thank you," she continued. "For what you did for Mickey back there. It means a lot to him, even if he can't say it."

"It was nothing," the Doctor said again.

"It was a lot," Rose insisted. "Thank you."

All the Doctor could do was nod.

"I've got to get back to work now," Rose said with a small smile, pointing at the door to the ward.

"Right, of course," he said, moving aside to let her pass.

After just a few moments, he heard her say something about Charles Dickens. The Doctor moved to the doorway to listen and caught a few words that made him smile.

" _'Halloa! Below there!' When he heard the voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled around its short pole._ "

The Doctor grinned to himself as he left her to her reading and the boys to their story.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **More adventures of the lovely Lady Rose and Dr. Chesterton.**
> 
> **The lines at the end come from the song** **_The Rose of No-Man's Land_ ** **, which was a very popular song during WWI. It was actually written in honour of the Red Cross nurses.**
> 
> **All credit for the choice of song goes to the ever-fantastic Wholockgal who found it for me.**

The night was blissfully quiet. In the trenches, for the first time in a long time, men slept quiet and dreamed of places and faces more beautiful than those they saw in their waking lives. In the hospital, the nurses dreamed of healthy men, of their own homes and children and lives. The drivers dreamt of adventures- those quiet, day-to-day adventures of love and life, and the large, grander adventures of travel and danger. The men in camp dreamt of peace, quiet, and joy.

Rose Tyler dreamt of a train that could take her anywhere in time and space, and a hand to hold as she explored them.

Dr. Alistair Chesterton dreamt of a golden angel who could heal a wounded soul.

The following morning, as the guns remained silent and the warm sun shone over France, there was an air of holiday among the men in camp that bled quickly into the women. By early afternoon, the nurses had given up on expecting the drivers to get anything done in their high spirits and had shooed them out into the sunlight.

The girls burst from the shadowy hospital and into the warmth and brightness like children released from school. When the guns and bombs held quiet, sometimes it was possible to pretend that the world was not in torment- that sunshine and laughter were the norm, rather than a rare and closely guarded treasure.

It had been a year on the lines for Rose. She had turned 20 to the smell of blood and mustard gas. Donna had managed to scrounge together the makings of a very small cake (sugar was rationed, after all) and the chorus of ' _she's a jolly good fellow_ ' had been interrupted when they had all been forced to race for their ambulances as the world had turned over beneath their feet.

That night, after Donna sent Rose to bed amid the continued sounds of gunfire and shelling, she had thought about the nature of adulthood. Twenty seemed an important year- the beginning of her third decade- but Rose felt that she had become an adult the day that her country had gone to war against the Germans. The term "older than your years" was tossed around, Rose knew, but she thought that there would be an entire generation of English men and women who would be precisely that- unnaturally aged by war and deprivation and fear. Young in body and ancient in mind and heart.

That day, however, Rose felt as young as her years for the first time in months. She regaled Martha and Donna with the story of the apple tree that grew outside of the window of the kitchen in her family's home that she had climbed for years, always trying to reach the moon and stars. She'd done it until their cook, Mrs. Henrick, had told her that it was behaviour unbecoming a young lady and had put a stop to it.

"Pshaw, unbecoming!" Donna snorted. "If you wanted to climb trees, you should have climbed trees, no matter what some old besom said."

"If she'd told my mum what I was up to, I'd never have heard the end of it."

"So you stopped climbing trees?" Martha asked sceptically.

"Of course not," Rose scoffed. "I just found a different tree!"

The girls laughed and continued their meander through the camp. They were going nowhere in particular but were soaking the sun and reminiscing about their childhoods.

Martha told a story about a dog she'd found run down by a horsecart. She'd nursed the creature back to health, though she and her brother, Leo, had been forced to amputate one of its legs. The three-legged dog had healed, however, and been a lovely companion until Martha had been a teenager.

Donna told of leading her nurse a merry chase through the stable and grounds of her family's home as the old woman had tried to force her to sit and learn needlepoint. Rose and Martha had laughed heartily at the thought of the boisterous redhead working on anything as domestic as needlecraft. Donna had tried, for a moment, to look offended, but had eventually given up and admitted that she'd never had any interest in it at all.

"I'm quite the disappointment to my mother," she admitted with a dramatic sigh that was only partly affected.

Before the other two could question Donna this odd assertion, they came upon a knot of soldiers, at the centre of which was a woman guaranteed to ruin all of their days.

"And I was having such a nice time, too," Rose muttered as the woman caught sight of the three of them and waved them over to her.

The vicar in the village was a transplant from Ireland by the name of Harold O'Brien. He'd married a French girl named Cassandra.

Cassandra worked at the hospital on a semi-regular basis because, as the vicar's wife, it was her duty to provide an example to the women of the village. She, herself, did not seem to find any pleasure or point to doing the work- it was all an act for her. She did, however, like throwing parties and flirting with the soldiers, despite her marital status. She was as shallow as a puddle, and two-dimensional as a stretched canvas, but Rose, Martha and Donna could not avoid her when she called their names loud enough to be heard in the trenches themselves.

In truth, she only called Donna and Rose over to her. Cassandra considered Martha beneath her, but she coveted the friendships of the other two women whose titles she found impressive (if less so than their French equivalents).

Martha, however, as the most diplomatic of the trio, was the first to speak when they joined Cassandra's court.

"It's lovely to see you today, Mrs. O'Brien. Have you come to help the nurses?" Martha asked sweetly.

"Martha," Cassandra said, as though she'd only just noticed the other woman. "Charming." She turned to Rose and Donna with a much more eager expression on her overly-made-up face. "Rose and Donna, I was so hoping that I would run into you today."

"Oh yes?" Rose asked, lifting a single eyebrow at the older woman.

"But of course! I got the loveliest gift from the vicar today- a new gramophone and some records from Paris that are all the rage. There was also a gentleman in the village who brought sheet music for the piano. I thought we might have a bit of a lark this evening at the vicarage with some music. Doesn't it sound lovely?"

"Is the regiment invited?" Donna asked sharply. "The nurses? All of the drivers?"

Cassandra's face scrunched up, as though she had eaten a lemon. "Yes," she admitted. "The vicar said that everyone in camp who has an interest should be invited. He sent me here to invite everyone." Her disgruntled glare said that she had intended to be quite selective in the people she told.

"Well, now you've told us, we'll be sure to spread the word," Rose said with a sunny smile.

~?~?~?~?~

Among Donna, Rose and Martha, the entire camp had been informed of the opportunity for music and fun at the vicarage that night. Many of the nurses and drivers were there, though Zoe and a nurse named Sarah Jane had stayed behind to keep an eye on the boys on the ward. Nearly all of the men from the regiment were there.

Rose was speaking to Tim Latimer when she saw the boy glance over her shoulder and subtly straighten his spine. Rose turned to determine what had so unsettled her friend to find the tall form of Dr. Chesterton looming behind her.

"Captain," Tim said, stiffly.

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me 'Doctor?'" the older man groused. "At ease, Private."

Tim's shoulders lost a fraction of their stiffness.

"Dr. Chesterton," Rose said with a nod. She felt a bit like blushing in that moment. She was wearing trousers, as she nearly always did when she could be called to the trenches any moment, but they were clean as was her hair for the first time since she had met this man. For some reason, the Doctor seeing her with her hair loose over her shoulders and her clothes carefully chosen seemed more intimate and important than she would ever have credited before that moment.

"Ms. Tyler," he said, to her, his eyes roaming over her with a boldness that should have offended her, but instead made her feel a bit flushed, particularly when his blue eyes returned to hers and the smirk on his face was one of appreciation. "Are you here this evening for the music or for the company?"

Rose glanced over at Cassandra, who kept glaring daggers at her, and grinned. "I can't think of finer company," she teased. "Can you keep a secret?" She included Tim in this question, and both men nodded. She beckoned them forward so that she could whisper to them. "I don't actually have an ear for music, unfortunately."

The two men burst out laughing, and Rose smiled, her tongue tucked between her teeth at the corner of that smile. Her mother always told her to behave like a lady- small smiles, quiet laughs, and gentle humour, but Rose had never been very good that those things. The delight on the Doctor's face, however, made all of the guilt she'd always felt over her ineptitudes melt away.

Cassandra drew everyone's attention to herself because she was going to play a piece on her piano that was "all the rage in Paris." She sat herself down and began to play something rather cacophonous and horrible. Rose scrunched her face up in disgust at the sound.

"I thought the French had good taste in music," Donna said, loud enough to be overheard by the woman at the instrument.

There was a general murmur of agreement from the guests.

"Well! I never!" Cassandra cried, turning from her playing. "Just because you don't understand how modern and fashionable this music is. It just shows how behind the times you are, Donna Noble!"

The Doctor had been frowning through Cassandra's playing.

"May I see your music, Mrs. O'Brien?" he asked, politely.

"Of course, Captain Chesterton," Cassandra simpered, handing the music over. He glanced through it as she continued talking. "The man who sold it to me told me that everyone in Paris is playing it just now. They're coming up with the most wonderful dances for it. Anyone who is anyone just loves it!"

Cassandra was cut off by the Doctor bursting into laughter. Everyone turned to him, bemused.

"What is it, Dr. Chesterton?" Rose asked.

Rather than answering her directly, the Doctor sat himself in Cassandra's vacated seat at the piano, flipped the sheet of music upside-down, and began to play. After only a few notes, everyone in the room recognized the tune to _The Rose of No Man's Land_.

The Doctor stopped after a moment and turned to Cassandra. "I'm afraid that you were had, Mrs. O'Brien," he said. He made the attempt to sound pitying, but there was a laugh in his voice that he could not quite suppress. "This is just a sheet of music that accidentally got printed upside-down, and they sold it to you as some new, modern song out of Paris."

Everyone in the room burst into laughter, and Cassandra looked as though she might cry. Rose felt sorry for her, and tried to go to her to comfort the woman, but she ran from the room before Rose could do anything but take a step toward her.

Once she was gone, the Doctor began to play again, and added his surprisingly pleasant tenor to the song.

As he sang, his eyes found Rose's and never left.

_Out of the heavenly splendour,_ __  
_Down to the trail of woe,_ __  
_God in his mercy has sent her,_ __  
_Cheering the world below;_ __  
_We call her "Rose of Heaven",_ _  
_ _We've learned to love her so._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I know this is very late. Normally I publish these first thing in the morning, but my week has been rather horrible in various ways.**
> 
> **I had intended for this chapter to be a re-write of The Unquiet Dead, but it didn't go that way. Rose and Alistair needed a bit more time from me, so I gave it to them.**
> 
> **I hope you like it!**

Spring 1917 turned into summer with its oppressive heat and dripping humidity. The Yankees had joined them in the spring and their numbers and guns had turned the tide of the war. The quiet hopelessness of the previous months, as they watched their countrymen die in droves in the trenches began to be replaced by tentative hope that perhaps all was not lost.

In August, Tim and the Doctor's regiment was moved down the line by several miles. Rose was pleased because it was a much quieter section of the front than theirs, but sorry that it was so far away that they would be assigned to a different camp and a different selection of drivers. Rose smiled with the others when the orders came through, but her heart wept that she would be losing both her dear friend and… and Alistair.

In the months since they had met, Rose and the Doctor had become close. During the week that he had spent in base camp, they had found themselves spending much of their time together between their respective duties. Rose had found that he was also a great lover of Charles Dickens, but also of nearly every book that had come under his nose. He had an opinion on nearly every topic under the sun and had clever ideas as innumerable as the stars (nearly all of which he seemed able to name).

The Doctor discovered that Rose Tyler was no pampered aristocrat. She was a hard-working girl with a practical mind and a boundless imagination. She wasn't as clever as he was (few were), but she was quick-witted and picked up quickly on ideas as he spoke. She had a hungry mind that had not been sufficiently fed, and a taste for adventure that had brought her to the trenches.

One night in late July, Dr. Chesterton found himself at the base camp for a night. He'd come in to pick up supplies and had been held back checking on some of his men who were in the hospital there. He'd checked them all over carefully, despite knowing that the doctors in the hospital were excellent. He'd never have admitted it- not out loud, anyway- but he was hoping to run into Rose Tyler.

Generally she found him. She would hear from one of the drivers or nurses or other gossip-mongers among the denizens of the base camp that he was about and she would appear at his side, often with a flask of tea or a question about a book she had been reading or natural history.

In the past the Doctor had always sent others back to base camp for him. It was his right, as a senior officer, to return to pick up supplies and check on his men, but he considered his skills too important among the men to allow him to leave the trenches as often as he was allowed. He still regularly sent others back in his place for a bit of quiet and rest, but he had found a reason to stop pushing himself to the limit as well. Rose would frown at him if he looked more tired than he ought when finally he saw her again, and he hated to see her frown.

That day, however, Rose did not find him. The nurses told him that he would have to stay the night- the sun was setting and it was not safe to travel after dark on the makeshift roads save in an emergency. The Doctor considered asking after Rose specifically, but when he imagined the knowing (or worse, disapproving) looks that the nurses would give him, he thought better of it. Stuck in camp overnight, he was sure he'd see her, even if only over tea in the morning, but he felt bereft that she hadn't come looking for him.

As he crossed the camp from hospital to barracks, he saw a black silhouette against the setting sun. How he knew whose silhouette it was when they were seated, knees-to-chest, he could not have logically said, but he walked toward it and sat beside the girl who had consumed his thoughts all day.

She was not looking West, toward the setting sun and the trenches, but East toward the night sky and...

"Homesick, Ms. Tyler?"

"Good evening, Dr. Chesterton," she said, ignoring the question.

He sighed. "We've discussed this. I'd much prefer for you to call me-"

"Doctor," she interrupted. "I know. Trouble is, you see, I work in a hospital. There are a number of doctors about and without distinguishing between them, things could become quite confusing."

"Call me something else then," he pleaded. "Call me Braxatiel, or Romanadvoratrelundar, or Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-De Slitheen, but don't call me Dr. Chesterton."

"Those are all very impressive names," Rose said with a laugh in her voice, "but I don't think I could say any of them. I might be convinced to call you Alistair, however."

The Doctor stared at her as though he'd never thought of asking her to call him Alistair. Then, slowly, like the dawn, his bright, manic smile split his face.

"Yeah," he said, wonder in his voice, "you could call me Alistair."

"There is one small problem though," she said, looking at him meaningfully.

His smile dimmed slightly. "Is there?"

"Oh yes. I can't call you by your Christian name if you will insist upon calling me 'Ms. Tyler' at all times. If I'm to call you Alistair, you will have to call me Rose."

His smile was back, but now it was a gentler and more honest thing. "Rose then," he said, softly. "Rose Tyler."

She could not explain why her name on his tongue made a shiver run down her spine, but it did.

"So, Rose," he said, his mouth caressing her name as though it were the finest chocolate, "why are you out here at this hour. Too early for stargazing."

"I've always wanted to go to Paris," she said, nonsensically.

"You've never been?" he asked, surprised. It was not uncommon for young ladies of Rose's class to be educated in France.

"I have not," she said, quietly. "Father wanted me to come to one of the schools here, but Mother wouldn't hear of it. They thought I would be their only child for so long. She couldn't stand the thought of being apart from me, and by the time Tony arrived, it was really too late. Mother isn't much of one for travel either, you see so she doesn't like coming to France. Anyway, it is Bonfire Night in Paris now. I was just imagining it."

"Let me describe it to you," he offered. He didn't know from whence the idea came, but if pressed, he might have been forced to admit that he thought it would put the sparkle into her eyes that had dimmed as she spoke of her distant family.

"Have you been?" she asked.

Now it was his turn to smile sadly. "I'm an old man, Rose Tyler. I have been many places."

Rose met his gaze steadily. "Not so old as all that," she said. "And what matters age when half of the men my own age will be either injured, dead or half-mad by the end of this horrible war? What then matters 20 years, or 30, or even 50? If a man is whole in body and mind, what difference the years?"

"And who is to say that I am whole in my mind, Rose?"

"Oh Alistair," she whispered, and a frisson of pleasure shot through him at the way his name tripped from her tongue. "You are, possibly, the maddest man in France today, but I can thing of no man whose mind is more whole."

He let out a shocked laugh at that and she smiled. Both knew that much had been said beneath their words and, even without it being said aloud, the message warmed him like fine cognac.

_I want you._

_I will wait for you._

_I believe in you._

In a not-terribly-casual gesture, the Doctor wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulders and began to describe Paris beneath the fireworks as the day died. That night the Germans sent up their own version of fireworks, the very lights that kept men from sneaking away from the trenches or moving under cover of darkness, but Rose dreamt of red and blue explosions over the Seine with a large, callused hand wrapped around hers and a low, husky voice whispering stories into her ears.

So when the nature of war took Alistair from her, she did not weep visibly, but her heart sobbed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I apologize for how late this chapter is. I went out to a party and trivia night at the bar last night rather than finishing it, and then today it kind of got out of hand.**
> 
> **This is a re-write of the Unquiet Dead (sort of), so I'll just warn you ahead of time that a character will die. I'm sorry about that.**
> 
> **For those of you in the US, I hope you're having a lovely Fourth, and for those of you outside the US, I also hope that you're having a lovely fourth, even though it's not a holiday.**
> 
> **Please enjoy, and remember that I LOVE reviews!**

The days cooled and the nights froze- when they didn't explode. The war became deadlier as everyone began to see the end drawing ever nearer. The Germans became ruthless as they became aware that the tides were turning against them- like a cornered animal, they became vicious. Some days, the mustard gas was so thick on the air that even the doctors, nurses, and drivers at the base camp could feel it burning their lungs, and the boys who came to them had the voices of old men- low and thick and husky.

Young men's bodies with old men's voices and aches and dark circles beneath their eyes.

Rose's red coat returned as the seasons made their irrevocable slide toward winter. The wind and rain and sun and cloud knew and cared nothing for the war. The generals could not stop the oncoming march of winter, though they tried everything they could. The red coat had seen two years of winter at war, and the bright colour was fading, it was stained, and it was frayed. Rose thought that, perhaps, it could not survive another winter. Every man and woman in Europe prayed that it wouldn't have to.

In the months that she was separated from Alistair, Rose watched the orders, death notices, and reports with a careful eye. Her heart stopped every time she saw a name that started with an 'A' on the list of the dead, and started again (guiltily) when it was an 'Albert' or 'Andrew.'

She prayed to whatever god might watch over soldiers and ambulance drivers and lovers in war that he would come back to her. He was her first thought upon waking and her last upon sleeping but, save for the daily reports and list of the dead, she was able to put him from her mind and work as she always had.

In mid-December, Rose began reading Charles Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_ to the boys on the ward. They were in stave four, three days before Christmas, when the report reached Rose that Alistair and Tim's regiment was returning. They would be marching in that very night with prisoners in tow and would be staying in camp one night before returning to the line for the artillery bombardment that had been ordered to prevent an unofficial truce over the holiday as had happened in 1914.

Rose's heart thrummed like a hummingbird all day. No words had been said- nothing that could be called a declaration or a confession. Nothing that could get her sent home. Chances were that she would not even see Alistair, with him in camp for only a few hours. Her logical mind tried to remind her of these things, but her heart continued to lurch at every heavy step, every man's voice, every figure caught out of the corner of her eye.

Finally, as the sun was setting, Rose entered the ward with her book under her arm to continue the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his epiphany.

" _The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Scrooge bend down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery."_

Rose settled into the story with the boys as Scrooge saw what the world would be like without him, and without Tiny Tim as well. As he concluded that his death would bring people joy, and Tim's would make the world an emptier place.

Between one breath and the next, the air in the room changed. Rose did not look up from the page, but she could feel it. It was a presence in the room that seemed to make her every nerve strain in its direction. Her cells seemed drawn to that presence like an iron filing to a magnet.

It was him, she was sure of it. She did not, however, look up, acknowledge him, or even falter in her reading.

" _'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge, 'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of things that Will be, or are they the shadows of things that May be, only?'"_

Rose refused to look up. If she did, she would either find that she was right and be lost in smiling at him, or that she was wrong and her heart would break again.

" _Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost."_

The stave was finished and Rose carefully placed her bookmark as the boys began their usual clamour for her to continue.

"I'm sorry, one stave at a time, you know that. There's only the one left, so we'll have it done by Christmas. I'm sure to have time to come read in the next few days."

Finally, _finally_ she lifted her eyes to the door and found him standing there looking exhausted and wounded and dark and beautiful and _there_ , and she nearly wept.

"Good night, boys," she said to the young men, carefully hiding her anxiety behind cheer. Her eyes locked with Alistair's as she walked toward where he stood in the doorway. He did not smile, nor did he offer any greeting until she stood before him. She thought her trembling might cause her to break apart but she held herself steady and said, in the most polite voice she could muster, "Dr. Chesterton."

"Ms. Tyler," he replied. His voice was a rough, painful growl and the sound made Rose wince in sympathy.

"May I make you a cup of tea for your throat? There are no lemons or honey, but the tea will help some on its own."

His face finally softened into something that was not entirely unlike a smile. "Yes, that would be nice. Thank you, Rose."

"Of course, Alistair."

And then, like the sun breaking through the clouds, he smiled at her and she smiled back.

She took his arm to lead him to the mess. As they walked down the quiet halls together, he dipped his head closer to her ear so that she could hear him as he spoke low.

"I missed you, Rose."

She was pleased that the halls were dark so that he could not see the pleased flush that she was sure was making her look like a tomato.

"I... thought of you often," she lied. She had thought of him nearly _constantly_.

"I tried to write you but every time I put pen to paper, I seemed to lose all of my words. You do that to me, do you know?"

"You... you ought not say such things. There's a war on, you know. No one knows what tomorrow might bring."

Alistair stopped and pulled her to a halt as well. He took her shoulders and turned her to face him, putting a fingertip under her chin to force her to meet his eyes. In the shadows of the hallway, they were blue-black and fathomless.

"I don't give a fig for what tomorrow brings, unless you are a part of it, Rose Tyler. Do you understand me?"

Rose was so wholly captured in his eyes that she could not so much as blink. All she could do was nod.

At her nod, Alistair moved forward slowly, giving her time to move away, to speak, to stop him. When she did not, he pressed his lips to hers in a reverent but chaste kiss that lasted only a moment.

Alistair pulled back and looked down at her, gauging her reaction. Her lips had parted and her eyes were wide and, for a moment, he was afraid that she was angry with him.

"We can't-" she whispered, stepping away from him.

"Of course," he said quickly, a flush of humiliation washing over him. "I presumed too much. Of course you're not... you wouldn't... not me."

"Don't be daft," Rose cut him off. "If we were to be caught, I'd be sent home. But... in another time... in peace? Yes. Whatever it is you'd like to ask me... the answer will be yes."

He looked at her in shock and awe. "Fantastic," he breathed.

~?~?~?~?~

When they arrived in the mess hall, they found Nurse Cooper and Dr. Sneed talking together. When she saw him enter, Nurse Cooper called out to Alistair. "Dr. Chesterton, those prisoners you brought are sleeping safe in my apartments now."

Rose looked up in shock. "You have prisoners in your private rooms, Gwen? Why? Prisoners should be locked up."

"Ooh, they're just babies, Ms. Tyler. They'll be no harm. The Doctor and I couldn't let them stay out there, they can't be more than 16. I speak a little bit of German, and they're such sweet boys. We'll let them sleep in the warm and quiet for a night."

Rose shook her head. "I really don't think that's a good idea though. It could be dangerous. You'll be there alone with them."

"Rose," Alistair said softly then, at Nurse Cooper's surprised look, he corrected himself, "Ms. Tyler, they're all alone. Their entire regiment was lost and it's just these two boys left. Nurse Cooper says that she can handle them, and she can speak with them. It will be fine."

Again, Rose objected. "I don't like it. Gwen, you really should send them to sleep-"

Gwen cut her off, however. "It is my choice, Rose. I won't have those angels sleeping in the cold tonight and that's final. It's very nearly Christmas and it wouldn't be right." Her tone held such finality that Rose shut her mouth, though worry and fear still shone from her eyes.

Rose made two cups of tea, one for her and one for Alistair and brought them over to the table at which he sat. He could see, when she sat across from him, that she was still upset.

"Rose, it was my fault that they were left behind. It was my order that killed their regiment and took them prisoner. It's my duty to see them protected."

"Does God know that you will be taking his power over life and death? Do the generals in London know that you will be taking their control over proper procedure? Not everything is your fault, Alistair. What is your fault, however, is risking Gwen's life."

"She offered to help, it is her choice."

"Then both of you are being remarkably thoughtless with her life. You cannot possibly expect me to support this."

"They are children."

"They are soldiers." Rose stood from the table to go.

"Please, Rose, don't go angry with me."

She turned back to him. "I'm afraid that I must."

~?~?~?~?~

"I'm so sorry, Rose."

Gwen's body was found the following morning. She had been stabbed by the two prisoners as they had escaped from her rooms. A team had been sent to find them, but there was nothing that could be done for Gwen.

"There was nothing I could do... she had been dead almost since we spoke to her."

Rose said nothing. Gwen was dead and Alistair's regiment was but moments from returning to the front. She could not seem to stop the tears that slid down her face, and she could not speak.

"I know you can't possibly forgive me after I killed your Gwen, but please say something, precious girl."

Rose shook her head. "When will you learn, you daft man? Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Those boys killed her, not you. Don't you remember, in the Christmas Carol? The second ghost says _'_ _There are some upon this earth of yours,who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'_ Every man does what he does and must take responsibility there. You did not kill Gwen, but you let your guilt over the deaths of men in war take precedence over her safety, and that you must live with. But still... I forgive you, Alistair." She lifted her hand to brush over his cheek and his eyes fluttered closed at the touch.

"I might believe, if you tell me often enough, that there is forgiveness for me. Thank you, Rose Tyler."

"Merry Christmas, Alistair."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Finally, a chapter finished on time! Happy Fanfiction Friday, everyone!**
> 
> **Just for clarification, the majority of this chapter is a flashback to the missing autumn between when Alistair's regiment left in early August, and when they returned in mid-to-late December.**
> 
> **Please enjoy!**

Rose met Captain Harkness during the autumn that Alistair was gone. A regiment of Americans had arrived during a lull in the fighting one evening in late August on a night that, in another lifetime, might have been perfect for a lover's tryst. Were there no guns, no barbed wire, no trenches or mustard gas, the sun would have been hot over the fields. Birds would have sung, and bees would have hummed, and the air would have smelled of hay-making and wildflowers.

As it was, the air smelled of blood and death and fire and chemicals, but new faces in camp, even if they would only be among them for a few days before descending into Hell, made everyone's spirits lift.

Anything that could warm the heart was welcome. The war raged, food become ever more scarce, and death became ever more present every day. Men died in the trenches and they died in the hospital wards and they died in the no-man's land between the armies and one poor soul died by firing squad in camp for having tried to desert his comrades. For a week after this last the drivers and nurses had struggled to smile again. When the notice came through that a regiment of Yankees would be among them briefly, it had been a light in the darkness that had been so desperately needed.

The girls stood outside awaiting the arrival of the new men. They came, their lines straight, their eyes bright, and their uniforms crisply pressed. Rose felt her heart sink and knew that Donna felt the same by the quiet, mournful noise she made at the sight they presented.

They were beautiful, strong and too, too inexperienced to be any good. Rose knew that each of them barely had even odds to make it out alive and un-harmed, and less-than-even odds to make it out with their minds, their dreams, and their hearts un-damaged. It was her experience, however, and that of many of those who had been a part of this god-forsaken war that you could not trust a man in a shiny new uniform to make it home. He didn't know the trenches and was far more likely to put his foot out of line or his head up in the path of a bullet than a man who had proven his survival capabilities.

Every girl looked at the new men as the walking dead.

Against her will, Rose's eyes were drawn to the faces of the men as they passed. She wished, desperately, that she could keep herself from knowing them and, in so doing, keep her heart safe from their inevitable loss, but she could not seem to help herself. They were beautiful and proud and serious and doomed, and they deserved her memory, even as it broke her heart.

Their commander caught her eye then. He was a bit different from his men- tall and broad-shouldered like many of them, but he carried himself with a different air of confidence. Rather than proud solemnity, he wore a bright smile that put his white teeth, cleft chin, and sparkling blue eyes on prominent display. Most jarringly, however, was that he was out of uniform. Oh he was wearing the dun-coloured trousers and high-necked jacket that his fellows wore, but over-top he wore a long blue greatcoat of an RAF officer.

"Why's he dressed like a flyboy?" Martha leaned over to ask Rose who shrugged.

She thought she saw his eyes flicker over to them, as though he had heard Martha's comment, and his smile seemed to brighten a degree, but he continued to lead the march up to the camp's commanding officer, Major Mott for whom he sketched a perfectly regulation salute with his perfectly non-regulation grin still sparkling out of his face.

The major returned his salute and greeted him with a barked "Captain Harkness."

"As you say, Major," the younger man said with a chuckle.

"You're out of uniform, son."

The young captain glanced down at himself and then resumed his cheeky smile at the Major. "I'm not, but if you buy me a drink, I could be."

Rose heard Martha, Tegan, and Zoe all gasp in shock at his words. Donna laid a hand on Rose's arm as though seeking strength, and Ace started up a round of silent giggles.

Rose had no idea what to make of the American so she watched the Major to see how he handled it. He was known to be strict but fair and would not be afraid to drop the Captain down a peg or two if he thought it needed to be done.

For a long moment, Major Mott stood glaring at the newcomer with blue eyes like steel. Captain Harkness' smile did not falter the entire time, and when the Major's face cracked into a smile, the Captain laughed.

"Are all the Yanks going to be like you, Harkness?" Major Mott asked, clapping the younger man on the shoulder.

"Sir, no sir," Jack said, indicating over his shoulder with a wave that his men were dismissed to their respective places. "I am one of a kind!"

As the regiment dispersed, Mott led Harkness past the ambulance drivers. He waved his hand at them in a vague sort of a greeting, and the American Captain gave them all a sunny smile.

"Where did you get the coat, lad?" the Major asked.

"Won it off a flyboy on the boat over," the younger man said, breezily and sent a saucy wink at Rose as he and the Major continued by.

~?~?~?~?~

The following day, Ace and Rose were washing the windows on the outside of the hospital. Rose had begged the job from the nurses because the ward had become so dingy she swore there was no way the men could possibly be getting enough sunlight, and because she could not seem to sit still. Since Alistair had left, Rose tended to feel like she needed to run (due East, in the direction that he was) if she didn't have enough to do. The front had been quiet for a few days, so it was largely chores and reading.

Ace had agreed to come out with Rose when the nurses had insisted that she should not be on the ladder without someone to keep an eye on her. Rose had rolled her eyes, but complied because Ace would not crowd her and knew nothing about Alistair and Rose's feelings about the man- unlike Donna who was beginning to suspect.

From the ground where she was washing the ground-floor windows, Ace chattered away about an uncle in England that she always called the Professor. Rose listened with half an ear, having heard most of her stories before, and hummed quietly as she washed the windows on the second floor.

Rose had leaned out over the side of her ladder to reach another window without having to climb down and move the entire apparatus when disaster nearly struck. Ace's voice had faded into the background of her perceptions, but a new voice inserted itself into her ear and caused her to jump, which caused her to overbalance, which caused her to lose her footing and tumble off the ladder.

Rose didn't have time to scream. All she had time for was an undignified squeak of surprise when she found herself being caught in a pair of strong arms and looking up into a pair of vivid blue eyes under a crop of gently wavy dark hair.

"Woah there," her rescuer said with a gentle smile. "You're lucky I was here. The name's Jack Harkness."

With something less than her usual dignity Rose could only seem to muster her scattered thoughts into a single, breathless word. "Hullo."

Jack Harkness grinned down at her. "Hello," he repeated back to her.

"Hullo," Rose said again, and then shook her head, some of her thoughts finally returning. "I'm sorry, that was two 'hullo's there. Boring but thorough."

Captain Harkness laughed and Ace's face appeared, upside-down in Rose's field of vision, pale and worried looking.

"Are you all right, Rose?"

"Yes, of course, Ace," Rose reassured the other woman. "Would you mind letting me down now?" she asked the Captain.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" he asked with a sceptical eyebrow raised, even as he moved to set her on her feet. "You look a bit pale."

"What are you worried about me for?" Rose asked. "You're not even in focus."

After that, everything went quite black.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose's eyes fluttered open and she found herself again looking up into the eyes of Captain Jack Harkness, who was wearing a frown that looked foreign on his appealing face.

"You're awake," he said, sounding relieved. "The nurses will want to see you. You stay right there."

"Where am I going to go?" she mused quietly, even as he walked away. "Ipswich?"

He led two of the nurse in- Nurse Cooper and Nurse Oswald. "I'll be right outside the door, if you need me," he assured the three women before retreating.

"He's been in a right state," Gwen said, picking up Rose's wrist and taking her pulse.

"You be careful though, Rose," Clara warned taking a small torch from her apron pocket and shining it into Rose's eyes. "You know there's no fraternizing with the men. You could be sent home."

"I wasn't fraternizing!" Rose objected. "I was washing the windows and he startled me and made me fall off my ladder, that's all."

Clara gave Rose a serious frown and Rose decided not to continue defending herself. Better, she supposed, if the nurses spent all their time looking for inappropriate feelings toward Captain Harkness, with whom Rose was certain she would never be more than friends than with... anyone with whom Rose might be more than friends.

She couldn't even give those thoughts credence in her own head, but her heart warmed at the merest reflection of him.

When Gwen and Clara had given her the all-clear to leave the quiet hospital room, Rose found Jack Harkness still waiting outside of her door. He offered his sincerest apologies and begged her full forgiveness and swore himself her servant forever in such flowery language that Rose could not help but laugh and forgive him. The bright grin he gave her, and the kiss to her knuckles as his blue eyes had sparkled at her was thanks enough.

~?~?~?~?~

Over the next several months, Captain Jack Harkness wormed his way into Rose Tyler's affections. As his regiment's commanding officer, he could return to the base nearly weekly, though he only came once every 10-14 days. He always sought her out to check on her and make her smile before he left again.

Against everyone's expectations, Jack's regiment held. Pressed uniforms and shining buttons aside, his men were well-trained and worked together as a cohesive unit. No one had seen so few casualties in such a length of time in the entire course of the war. It was, to an extent, brought about by a friendly rivalry among the American, English and French troops, and it kept everyone's moral up as the days became colder and the nights became more nightmarish.

~?~?~?~?~

On New Year's Eve the officers were invited back to the base camp by Major Mott for a small, discreet celebration of the holiday. The drivers and nurses were invited to help provide conversation and pleasant entertainment, and the Major even pulled out an old gramophone and some records to allow for dancing.

Jack Harkness had immediately found Rose, had kissed her knuckles, wished her the best for the season, and had given her a bright grin and a saucy wink before moving off to circulate the room like the master that he was.

Almost immediately he had left her side the more formal and more imposing presence of Alistair materialized there.

"You've made a conquest, Ms. Tyler," he said in the coolest tone she had ever known him to use with her.

Rose turned to him and raised a single eyebrow. "Oh?" she said haughtily. "And who is that?"

"Your captain over there," Alistair said, with a nod toward Jack who was chatting with another pair of officers. "Far too pretty to be a useful captain," he muttered under his breath.

"Why, Doctor," Rose said with false alarm, "are you experiencing captain envy?"

Alistair did not dignify the remark with a response, he merely glared at Rose, who flashed him a knowing smile.

"I think you'd like him, you know," she said after a moment, serious now. "He's very like you, though he does dance."

"And what makes you think that I don't dance?" Alistair asked, all affronted.

Rose glanced at the gramophone, which was playing a sweet old song, and the small number of people shuffling about together in the space that had been cleared for dancing, then she sent a pointed look to her friend. "Do you dance, Alistair? Or does the universe implode if the Doctor dances?"

The Doctor bobbled his response, unable to find words that didn't stick in his throat as she looked at him, all innocence and sweetness through her lashes.

Harkness chose that moment to appear at Rose's side and offer to dance with her. Rose gave Alistair a quick look, but he still seemed too gobsmacked to say anything in his own defence, so she placed her small hand in Jack's, and allowed him to lead her to the dancing.

Just before they got there, however, Alistair reappeared at her side.

"May I have this dance, Ms. Tyler?" he asked, all formality.

"I believe that Captain Harkness wanted to dance, Doctor," Rose said, pointedly.

"I'm sure he would, Rose," Alistair responded, emphasizing this last word so that Jack could not mistake his meaning, "but who with?" He did not wait another moment before he took her hand and led her onto the floor and into a rather complicated dance that suited the music perfectly.

A single glance passed between the two captains over-top of Rose's head, and Jack understood. He smiled and leaned back against the wall to watch Rose dance with her Doctor.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This was supposed to be the last chapter, but I decided that I needed one more and so we have this. I read it to Hubby last night, and he told me that I'm mean.**
> 
> **This is a very sad chapter. If you think there is a possibility of being triggered by physical or emotional trauma, please let me know and I would be happy to discuss the contents of the chapter with you to determine whether you should read it or not.**
> 
> **Happy (or not-so-happy) Fanfiction Friday.**

Spring 1918 was a complicated time. Everyone could feel the end of the War approaching- every man, woman, and child in Europe was beginning to look up from the constancy of their duty to their country and see the writing on the wall. Germany was falling, but she would not do so without a fight.

It was a chaotic, bloody time. One night, as the bombs fell Rose considered the concept of a "just war." The newspapers had tried to explain what had caused this horrible war- the politics, the assassinations, the ascendency- but it had never been clear to Rose.

Her father had tried to explain, as Rose's friends had left England, and had tried again as they had returned, one-by-one, wounded, mad, or, worst of all, as nothing more than a telegram.

When she had arrived in France, the "whys" and "wherefores" had fallen to the side as the day-to-day struggles of life and death, cold and heat, hunger and fullness had taken greater precedence. Men died, and that seemed far more important in the moment than the words in the newspaper.

Sometimes, however, as Rose sat in the relative quiet of her ambulance, before wounded boys were put in, the sound of the guns and bombs muffled, she remembered that these boys had believed that they were dying for a cause, and she didn't think that any of them knew what it was.

She knew that if she died, it would be for no cause but pride and a sense of inertia that she could not deny- she'd had to _do_ something, not simply sit back and let the War pass her by.

In the end, the only conclusion that she could reach was something that Alistair had said to her once as they had watched the sun set out the hospital windows through the clouds of mustard gas from which they were hiding.

"It's entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that someday you can use the skill you have acquired here," he began. He was speaking as though he were in a trance, not as though he were trying to communicate any particular message to her. His natural accent was apparent and his face was closed.

Rose was sure that they were words that he had heard somewhere, not his own, and she remained quiet, listening.

"Suppress it," Alistair growled, harshly. "You don't know the horrible aspects of war. I've been through two wars and I know. I've seen cities and homes in ashes. I've seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell."

When he finished, they stood in silence and watched the last sliver of the sun slip beneath the horizon. When the sky was dark, Rose finally ventured to speak.

"Who said that?"

"William Tecumseh Sherman, a general in the American Civil War. He said it to a class of graduates from a military academy."

Rose had let it drop, and had simply stood silently with him as the stars tried valiantly to be seen beyond the very lights. She wished to hold his hand, rest her head on his shoulder, comfort him with her touch, but she had stood away. She had to be careful- they both did, but her most of all lest she be sent home. So, while she might have wanted to stroke and soothe him, she stood quiet and let him find what solace he could in the few stars that they could see.

Some days everyone lived- the ambulances made it in time and the doctors could save the wounded. Some days no one lived. It seemed that these latter days were far more common.

One day in April, Martha, Donna, Rose and Ace were called to the lines and they went. The shells fell like rain that day, and it was hours back and forth from the hospital to the lines. It was one of the days where it seemed that everyone might live, however- every man she had taken in had more-than-even odds of surviving.

Rose had caught no sight of any man she knew well- no Jack, no Tim, no Alistair- until she did. She saw Donna's ambulance- a lorry donated from a nearby farm and painted with the large red cross across the doors- but did not see her friend's gingery hair anywhere. Some instinct in Rose had her going to see what had happened, and she was horrified by what she found.

The opposite side of the lorry showed what had happened- a shell had landed some three paces away and exploded, caving in one side of the vehicle and throwing the two people who had been standing by it into the side. On the ground was Donna- red hair fanned out around her head like a bloody halo- and Tim Latimer. Both were unconscious.

"No, no, no, no," Rose murmured as she bent over the pair of them. There were two boys in her own ambulance, and she would be pushing it to add these two as well, but she would not leave them behind. No one was left behind.

Rose began with Donna, checking her over for wounds. She found nothing until she examined Donna's head and found a swelling at the back that made the older woman's breath hitch when she ran her fingers over it. She did not wake, however, and Rose thanked gods that she no longer believed in for small mercies. She checked Donna's pupils and found that one was normal-sized, and the other was blown wide and she cursed. Donna couldn't be woken and she had a concussion and Rose knew that the clock had begun to count down the moment that Donna had lost consciousness.

Rose half-lifted Donna by her shoulders and allowed her feet to drag as she pulled the other woman to the ambulance. She had taken only a few steps, however, when friction was removed, and Donna's weight re-adjusted when someone lifted her legs. Rose looked up to meet a pair of bright blue eyes under a thatch of wavy, dark hair and an uncharacteristically serious mouth.

"Thank you, Jack," Rose gasped out.

He nodded curtly, and helped her settle Donna in. Rose hurried back to Tim to find him already being looked after by another familiar shape- this one deeply beloved.

"Will he be all right, Doctor?" she asked.

"I don't know for sure, Rose," he answered, not looking up. "It's a nasty fall he took, and he's been hit by a lot of shrapnel, but he doesn't have a concussion and he hasn't injured anything that will give him trouble if he gets to base quickly."

"Better than Donna. I have to get her back, Doctor. She's unconscious and she's a concussion."

That got the Doctor moving. He lifted Tim bodily into his arms and rushed him quickly into the back of Rose's lorry. He then threw himself into the back with the casualties and Jack took the seat beside Rose as she threw the ambulance into gear and took off like the demons of hell were on her tail back toward the hospital.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose tried to focus on the fact that both Donna and Tim would survive. Even as her stomach churned and tea turned to sawdust in her mouth at their fates, she maintained the mantra of "they will live."

It was small comfort.

Traumatic amnesia, the doctors had called it when Donna had not recognized a single face. She had wept for her mother and father and her grandfather, sounding much younger than her years, and had trembled at every face that had come to her since she had woken.

At least she _had_ woken, Rose tried to comfort herself.

Tim had not yet. Though his injuries had seemed less serious than Donna's at first, Tim had yet to wake. It had been two days.

At least he was still breathing, Rose tried to remind herself. It did no good.

Jack and Alistair sat on either side of her in the mess, large hands wrapped around their own cups of tea and coffee. The bustle was subdued that day- the usual good-humour and rude high spirits of the drivers was compromised by the loss of one of their own.

Jack reached his hand out to Rose, and she placed hers into his and he squeezed gently.

"I'm so sorry, Rosie," he murmured to her.

Alistair held out a hand as well, and Rose placed her other hand into his. He held it like it was a precious thing, like porcelain or diamond.

"If I could make it better for you," he said, hoarsely, then cleared his throat. "If I could take the pain from you, I would do it. Gladly."

"As would I," Jack agreed.

For once, it wasn't about competition. It wasn't about winning her love. It was about providing this girl who had brought sunshine into the war for both of them some measure of peace. As blue eyes met over the top of a head of sunshine blonde hair, they were, for the first time, in accord.

And that day- the day when it seemed that no one was saved- a friendship was born.

* * *

**A/N: *Author hides from angry/sad readers***

**Also, next week should be the end of this story. It's been a fantastic ride with all of you. If you like this, I can recommend some of my other stories, which are entirely different! I do a lot of writing, however, so chances are good that I'll end up writing something you like again one day, so if you'd like to keep me on your author alerts, that'd be pretty super, and if you'd like to stalk me on Tumblr, that'd be fun as well!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **The final chapter that I'll be writing between our lovely Alistair and his Rose.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Happy Fanfiction Friday, and enjoy!**

Two days before the newspapers and radio waves across the world exploded with the news of the end of the Great War, a letter arrived at Powell, addressed to Jaqueline in her daughter's slightly hurried script, with the stamp of the censor on it.

Rose wrote home to her mother and father dutifully once a week, she wrote to her brother once a month, and on his birthday and Christmas. To her parents, Rose described her work without describing death. She talked of France without talking of war. Jackie knew, in her heart, that Rose was in danger and could die any day and saw death firsthand in a way that Jackie herself had never done, but she allowed herself to be soothed by the descriptions of adventure that Rose gave her. To little Tony, Rose described the very lights like fireworks, the bumpy roads and driving fast and the beauty of the men in their uniforms, dressed in pride and wool and righteousness.

This letter, however, on this day was not addressed to Lord and Lady Powell, but to Jaqueline Tyler alone- a private missive from daughter to mother. Peter raised his eyebrows in surprise, but allowed Jaqueline to take the letter to her private study to examine.

_My Dearest Mother,_

_To begin with, I will inform you that I am well. I am hungrier than I would like, and more tired, and there is a ringing in my ears from the falling of shells and the thunder of guns, and I have nightmares nearly every night, but compared to many, I am very well._

_I know that I have never admitted any of these things before to you, having always sought to make this seem a lovely adventure to keep you from worry. However, I have a very important piece of news to share with you, and I feel I must be honest about what I have experienced here for you to understand it._

_I do not know how much news you receive about the trajectory of the war, but we are being told that the end is more than just the glimmer on the horizon that it has been for so long, but is now a very real, very close fact. We have nearly won, and we shall be coming home soon._

_Because of that, I must confess something to you, mother, that I have not done yet. It is a story that you will understand, and it will probably not surprise you because it is such a common story in these strange years. There is a friend here, a soldier, with whom I would very much like you to become acquainted. He is a good man, the best kind of man, and he has been my hope in these hopeless times, as he says that I have been for him._

_I have always known that marriage was expected of me to keep me from becoming a burden upon my father in his age and my brother when he comes of age, but I could never bear the thought of binding myself to a man for whom I had less affection than you do for my father, and he for you. I could not stand to think that I would marry simply because it was expected and that there might not be love shared between my future spouse and myself._

_I no longer have this fear, Mother, if you comprehend me._

_I feared, after realizing how much this war would change me, that I could never find a man among my peers who could understand the pain of the front lines. Most men of my class were assigned to camps and behind-the-lines work, while the work of the war has fallen on the lower classes, and it is they who have died in droves, and their blood which will enrich the fields of this country for years to come. I feared that my marriage would force me to keep silent about all that I had seen and experienced- the death and pain and filth of war._

_I am sure that this fear is unfounded now._

_I am decided in my mind, Mother. I do not ask for your permission, for my decision is made, but I would like your blessing, and Father's. I would like to know that I need not divorce myself from you to follow my bliss. I would like your word that when my friend comes to call you will not send him away, thinking that you are protecting me, for you will be doing the opposite. I ask that you do not force me to disappoint you._

_I love you very much, Mother. I believe that I shall see you again soon. Give all of my love to my father and to little Tony. Please do not tell Father any of this, as I believe that this conversation is best had in person. I apologize for acquainting you of it through a letter, but I could no longer keep this secret from you. Forgive me, Mother. I could not bear it if you did not._

_All of my love,_

_Rose Tyler_

~?~?~?~?~

It should have come with fanfare. It should have come with explosions and fireworks and songs and dancing. It should have come with prayers and hymns and reverence usually paid to gods. It should have been whispered in the churches. It should have been shouted from the mountains. It should have been heralded by a chorus of angels.

In reality, it was heralded by nothing but the click of Nurse Oswald's shoes on the floor as she approached Rose who sat gently sponging the skin of a young man whose burns would leave him scarred for life, and whose tags said that he was called Fitz.

In reality, it was spoken in an excited whisper, underscored only by the crinkle of flimsy telegram paper in Clara's hands.

"Ceasefire," she said.

Rose's head snapped up from her work. "I beg your pardon?"

"They've declared a ceasefire, Rose. The war is over."

Over. Rose was stunned. The Great War had become her entire life. It was her defining moment and the event that had made her, broken her, and made her anew- stronger and more powerful than she could ever have imagined. And now it was over. Soon the guns would silence and the world would breathe anew.

And life would go on.

Rose looked down at her hands, and was pleased to see that, though they were shaking, she had not convulsively gripped Fitz's arm- she was still holding the boy gently, causing him no pain.

"Did you hear me? Rose, are you all right?"

Rose looked up at Clara and realized that the woman was expecting some response from her other than stunned silence, if the look of worry that was suffusing the look of radiant joy was any indication.

"That's… wonderful," Rose breathed. "I'm sorry, it's a bit overwhelming. When do the men go home? When do we? Have they told the people back in England?"

Clara looked less worried. "Yes, the newspapers back home have run the story- that the war is over. The official ceasefire is in three days and demobilization will begin. Women will be the first to be sent home- you and the other drivers and the nurses- and then it will be the men who have been here the longest. I suppose some of the behind-the-lines generals will go home as well, but it's supposed to be fair- if you've been here longer, you go home first, you see?"

"Yes, I suppose so. But they're sending us home before any of the men?"

"Us and the wounded, yes."

Rose looked down at Fitz again. "So we will be leaving when? In a week or two?"

"I shouldn't think more than a week. I'm off to send a telegram home, would you like me to send one for you?"

"I… yes please," Rose said. "Simply send it to the house at large, tell them that I will be home soon. Don't give a date, please."

"Of course not," Clara said. "You might want to spend some time in Paris or London!" She skipped from the room at that, nothing but joy at the end of the war.

Rose could feel something strange and warm that seemed to fill up her chest. It was not an emotion that she could easily put a name to. It was terror and joy and loss and hope all together, swirling around her heart. She looked again at the young man whose wounds she had been bathing and knew that she could do no more for him. He was asleep under the influence of morphia, and would remain so for many more hours.

She set down her cloth, picked up her skirts, and fled the hospital.

~?~?~?~?~

When Alistair found her, she stood on a hill outside of camp, a silhouette in the setting sun. Her features were obscured by the halo of golden light and, for a moment, she looked a goddess- as though she could hold all of the power of time and space in her small hands.

The impression was fleeting, however, as he stepped closer, and he found that it was just her. Just Rose Tyler, and there were tear-tracks down her face.

"Sweet girl," he murmured, cupping her face in his hands and brushing her cheeks with his thumbs. "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Hush, don't apologize to me, Rose."

They stood quiet in the dying light for a long time, neither certain what to say.

"It's over," Rose said, breaking the silence. "The war."

"Barring some political foolishness and the actual silencing of the guns, yes. The war is over."

"When do you… do you know when you will be able to… to go home?" Rose asked.

"Three weeks, they say, before my men are demobbed. You?"

"Five days."

Silence descended again for a long time.

"I think," Alistair began, then hesitated. "I think I won't stay in England for long."

"No?"

"No. I think I shall travel. See the world now that it is whole. Maybe do some good- heal some things rather than destroy them."

"Where will you go?"

"I think I won't return to France any time soon. Maybe Spain. I understand that Barcelona is beautiful." Rose would be beautiful under the Mediterranean sun- hair bleached nearly white and skin bronzed.

"On your own?"

"My family is gone. Who else is there?"

"There's me."

He looked at her, her wide eyes the colour of whiskey and just as intoxicating. He was trapped in their depths- a willing prisoner.

"Would you come with me?"

She looked away then, breaking the connection.

"I can't."

Alistair's heart broke at the words, and his knees nearly buckled as the well of hope that had been rising inside of him turned instantly to ice.

"Imagine what would happen if I ran off, unmarried, with an unmarried man, to parts unknown? My family would be in shame."

She raised her eyes to his again, and this time there was a challenge. He knew what she wanted and he could not- would not- deny it to her.

Alistair picked up her left hand in his right and brushed his thumb over her fourth knuckle.

"And if we were, neither of us, unmarried? What then?"

"It would be a scandal, that, but no shame."

He smiled then, a slow, hopeful thing. He brought her hand to his lips and pressed them to that fourth finger again- he would adorn it someday, but was not yet prepared.

"I have no land to offer you, no wealth, not even a name that matters. I have nothing but myself- legs that would walk a thousand miles to reach you, arms that will hold you and never let you go, a back that will bear your burdens, eyes that will see none but you, and a heart that will be yours and only yours. Had I a second, it too would be yours. Rose Tyler, would you do me the very great honour of being my wife?"

The sun had slipped beneath the horizon at this confession, but Rose's smile seemed to replace all of the light and warmth that it had taken with it.

"Fear not. I will be your second heart, and I will go with you wherever you go, Alistair."

Without warning he swept her into his arms, bringing her to him so that her heart and his nestled side-by-side, tapping out a four-beat staccato together.

He bent his head toward her and took her mouth. His kiss reminded Rose of the ocean- huge and powerful and reaching out to sweep one away with it into the unknown, dangerous, beautiful depths. She allowed herself to be swept because she knew that whatever was coming, it was the most exciting thing that she could imagine.

When finally he released her to breathe, they found that the stars had appeared as though summoned by their kiss.

"I love you."

* * *

**A/N: Never fear, my lovelies. I will be writing other things soon! My big series will start updating with something that resembles regularity again before long, and I've a rather ambitious idea for another AU based on Alice in Wonderland.**

**Thank you for joining me on this journey, it's been such fun!**


	11. Epilogue: Wedding Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **So... this story was technically over, but then I got a prompt on Tumblr and decided to set the response in my Green Fields 'verse, and ended up writing a piece that was twice as long as any of the actual chapters. Naturally.**
> 
> **The prompt was "Honeymoon Sex," so this chapter is rather NSFW for sexual content. I have updated the rating, as you can see, because of it.**
> 
> **I have another prompt for this story, so there may be another epilogue eventually.**
> 
> **Please enjoy!**

Ten years before, the eldest child of the Earl of Powell could never have been married in any but the event of the social season. There would have been months of flowers and dresses and food and wine. There would have been announcements in the Times and family called in from all corners of the country.

The War, as it had done everything else, had changed this. Rationing was still in place, so there was little enough extra for a wedding breakfast, silk and velvet were in short supply for gowns, and the entire country was weary. The piece was published in the Times, Rose Tyler, daughter of Peter Tyler, Earl of Powell to marry Dr. Alistair Chesterton, buried behind news of the the aftermath of the war.

The light of love was enough to please everyone, and no one cared that her husband-to-be was a nameless nobody that she'd met in the trenches of France. There were cruel words spoken about them, but most of England seemed to want to believe in the goodness of love after the horrors of war.

They wed in the chapel on the Powell Estate- a small, grey-stone building that had served as the spiritual center of life on the Estate since time immemorial- by a small white-haired man who had married Peter and Jaqueline, had christened Rose, and had prayed with her the night before she left for France. They were witnessed by family, and those friends who were nearly as close as family. Martha Jones and Dorothy McShane stood for Rose. Jack Harkness and Mickey Smith stood for Alistair. Jaqueline wept as the words were spoken, and everyone let out a cheer when Dr. and Mrs. Chesterton shared their first kiss blessed by gods and men.

There was a small party afterwards, but no ball. Rose was aglow and Alistair could scarcely seem to take his eyes off her. Even as he spoke to her mother and father, thanked their friends, and promised to write, his eye drifted to his new wife. There had been no time for a bespoke gown to be made, so she was wearing an evening gown of her own from before the war- it was out-of-date, but she made the pink silk and ivory lace shine with her brilliant smiles and glowing eyes.

After what seemed an age, the time had come for the newlyweds to depart. After another round of hugs and congratulations and a shower of apple blossom petals, Alistiar handed Rose into the back of an old Morris auto that would take them to the cottage on the grounds of Powell where they would spend their wedding night.

The driver was an old retainer of the Tylers named Brian Williams. He and his wife and their son Rory had been members of the household all of Rose's life. Throughout the drive, she kept up a running conversation with him about his family, most particularly his son, Rory, whose university career her father had helped to fund. It kept her mind from the nerves that cropped up every time she thought about what awaited her when she and her new husband were alone at the cottage. If she gripped Alistair's hand too hard, and if she talked too fast and was too chipper with Brian, no one made a comment.

When they arrived, Rose waited for her husband to hand her out of the car. When he moved to help Brian with the bags in the boot, the older man just shook his head.

"No, I don't need any help from you sir. You two go on in and get settled. I remember what it was like. Many felicitations to you both," he concluded, tugging at his cap and grinning at them both.

Alistair then turned toward Rose and offered his elbow for her to take. She did so and the two processed up the steps and into the cottage with all the dignified formality of entering the estate of a Peer.

Rose could feel her heart thrumming as she indicated the way through to their (shared) room with little tilts of her head. She feared that if she tried to speak, her voice would come out as nothing more than an undignified squeak.

When they reached the bedchamber, Alistair released her arm.

"I suppose that you will want to bathe and... and change," he stammered, sounding as nervous as she felt. "You look lovely, I don't know if I told you."

Rose smiled. He had told her four times during the breakfast and the way his blue eyes had sparked at seeing her on her father's arm as they had entered the chapel had told her all she needed to know.

"You did," she said, looking down modestly. She ruined the image, however, by glancing up at him through her long, dark lashes and smiling with her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth. "I don't mind hearing it again, however, husband."

His face softened, and he reached up to gently slide his fingertips over the smoothness of her cheek. "I will say it as often as you like, wife."

He bent his head down to gently brush his lips against hers but found that, once there, he could not help but take a sip of her flavour, darting his tongue over her full, pink bottom lip.

When she parted her lips, willingly, to his assault, he could not stop himself responding, adding pressure to her warm, mobile lips, and nibbling gently until she opened fully, allowing his tongue entrance into her mouth to slip and stroke along her own. His hands slid over the silk at her waist and down over the lace that covered her bottom, pulling her closer to himself.

Rose slid her hands up his chest. She had not been allowed this much liberty to touch her fiance in the entire time they had been engaged. They had been apart from the time she had left the front lines to the time that he and his unit had been demobbed. After that, the chaos of war having wreaked havoc on the all aspects of their peculiar courtship, her mother had attempted to regain some control over the relationship and had imposed the most rigid chaperonage that Rose had ever known. Even holding her future-husband's hand had elicited raised eyebrows and pointedly-cleared throats in the four weeks that banns were being posted.

Finally she could touch him, stroke her hands across his chest and up into his soft hair. He'd finally been allowed to let it grow some but it was still a scant inch and a half long. Not quite enough for her to tug on, but she liked to run her nails across his scalp regardless.

After several long minutes, Alistair pulled back from his wife's mouth. Her eyes fluttered open and he could see her pupils blown wide and a flash of purely male pride shot through his system. The pleasure of her flushed cheeks and kiss-reddened lips warmed every part of him, though some parts seemed more interested than others. He nearly brushed the question aside to allow himself to sample more of his wife's ample charms, but he had noticed her nervousness in the car. Could feel them growing as he had approached the bedroom with her. He had to ask. Had to be sure.

"Would you like to clean up now or..." he trailed off.

"Or?" she asked, eyes wide and trusting and oh so naïve.

"Or we could go to bed, my Rose. If you like."

He watched as the pleasurable haze seemed to fade from her eyes. She bit her lower lip (and didn't he wish that she would let him do it for her?) and frowned.

"We needn't, if you don't want to, Rose. You can take all the time you like. Please don't feel like I'm pressuring you."

"It's not that, not at all! It's just... I don't know what to do, Alistair! I don't know if I should have a bath or if I should not. I don't know if going to bed is right as it's still light. I just don't seem to know anything! The time I might have spent learning about it, I was in France, and... well... we talked about it some, but never the specifics. We were all unmarried so it was just hearsay and gossip!"

Alistair chuckled and cupped her face in both of his hands. "Oh my sweet Rose. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' in this, I promise you. Tell me, do you want a bath?"

She shook her head, nuzzling into his hands. "I want to stay with you."

His smile deepened. "You will, my dear. I'm not going anywhere. Forever- we said that today. You're stuck with me."

Rose smiled, slow and bright as the dawning sun. "Stuck with you? That's not so bad."

"Will you let me show you then? Let me love you?"

"Please," she whispered.

For a long moment, Alistair merely looked into her eyes. They were so full of want and hope and love and joy that he was, momentarily, brought up short. He felt unworthy of all of that love, of all of the things that Rose Tyler (now Chesterton) represented. She had been love and hope and golden joy in the midst of the war and had reminded him that there was more to life than death and blood and loss. He could never repay her all that she'd given to him, but he could try.

He kissed her again, sliding his fingers into her hair to loose the pins that held it in its sleek chignon. She had been beautiful as she'd walked into the chapel, back-lit by the sun and glowing pink and golden like a goddess of time. He had kissed her as the vicar had declared to all and sundry what he already knew- that she was his and he was hers and they had their forever together.

Now, however, that well-presented bride was falling away with each knot untied and each button slid free. In her place was, instead, a woman, a wife, and everything that he wanted for the rest of his life.

Her gown puddled to the floor, pulled by gravity as he loosed one last button, revealing her silk chemise and stockings to his heated gaze.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, moving forward to taste again. His lips moved from her mouth to her throat to her shoulder to her clavicles. He blazed a trail across every inch of skin that he could reach as his fingers slowly- achingly slowly- pulled the fabric of her chemise to bunch at her hips.

"Doctor," she murmured as his lips and teeth and tongue found a spot behind her ear that made her shudder. "Oh, Alistair."

"Touch me, Rose. Please," he growled into her ear. She obeyed, sliding her fingertips across his face- over the sharp edges of his cheekbones and around the shells of his ears to the back of his neck. They trailed from here to his shoulders, pushing at his jacket. He took his hands from her to slide the offending article off, then he took his wife's hands and placed them at the buttons of his shirt. He watched as she worked them free, her eyes narrowed in concentration, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth.

She was so young, he thought. Younger even than he had been the first time he'd been married. He'd had such a short time with his lovely Charley before she and little Susan had been gone. Carried away where he could never touch them again.

But now there was his pink and yellow Rose whose warm fingers had spread his shirt and were shoving it too from his shoulders to put his chest on display. As he shrugged out of the shirt, she touched him, as he had asked, drawing her fingers across his chest and stomach and up his sides, making him shiver as she brushed across his nipples and dipped into his navel.

"You're beautiful," she said softly. She lifted her eyes to his and that look silenced his objection before he could even make it.

"I'd like to take you to bed, my Rose, my wife. Would you come with me?"

Rose smiled. She was in her undergarments before him, more undressed than she had ever been in the presence of a man not her father. He was half-undressed and had been kissing her breathless only moments before, and yet he could still be so formal about so many things.

She loved him so.

Had she said it to him recently? She'd said it at the wedding but had she said it since? It had been a whirlwind, and she thought not. He knew, of course he knew, but it was a good thing to say, and if it could be said truthfully, it needed saying.

"I love you," she said, and revelled in the light of the smile that broke across his face.

"And I love you," he said.

"Then I would love to go to bed with you, husband."

Her husband took her hands and pulled her, gleefully, to the large, four-poster bed on the other side of the room. When they reached it, he pushed her to sit and knelt in front of her to slide her slippers from her feet then to trail his fingers up her legs to the tops of her stockings and slowly, ever-so-slowly, roll them down her legs.

Rose could feel heat at her centre and moisture as well. She wondered what was happening, and feared that something had gone wrong. She nearly wanted to stop Alistair's hands as they began to push the hem of her chemise up over her knees, and then to her hips, putting her womanhood on display.

"Oh my sweet Rose," he said softly, as he looked at her. "May I touch you?"

Rose felt panicked. She wanted him to touch her, but she had to warn him. She hadn't known anything about wetness or heat or... he was so close he might even be able to smell her! She was, suddenly, terrified.

Alistair, as attuned to her moods as ever, noticed. "Rose? My sweet girl, please, tell me what's wrong?"

"I don't know," she cried, her voice on the edge of hysteria. "It's wonderful, everything has felt so lovely but... you can't touch me there. It's wet and I don't know... It's not... I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me!"

"No, oh no, my precious girl." Alistair leaned up to kiss her face. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest, gently rocking her until she calmed.

"Oh Rose, you're so perfect," he murmured to her. "You've done nothing wrong, I swear it. You're just right, just perfect my beautiful girl, I promise."

"Then what...?"

"That wetness is a good thing, I assure you," he hurried to tell her, then winced slightly. "You know... the mechanics of what we are to do, don't you?" he asked, hesitantly.

Rose blushed. "I know... more or less... what should happen," Rose said with a glance at the apex of his thighs, and then away as though caught in a crime.

Alistair sighed. What was it with the aristocracy and their inhibitions about sex? It was a wonder that the nobility survived multiple generations if they could not even speak of that which produced their heirs.

"Then you know that you have a... channel that I will enter, yes? That wetness, which comes with desire, will help to... lubricate the entrance, if you understand." Alistair hated the clinical description, but he did not want to frighten her with anything more crass.

She looked at him with those wide, doe's eyes so trusting and warm. "So... it's all right? I'm all right."

Alistair chuckled. "You're better than all right, my Rose. You're perfect. May I touch you now?"

Rose nodded and he settled himself back to where he would be able to see her best and continued to push her chemise to her hips, displaying her lovely, pink sex to his eyes for the first time. He reached out to gently stroke her with his fingertips, not to excite or inflame, but to build the fires already in place.

Rose gasped as his cool fingers touched her heat and she felt another rush of moisture.

"Beautiful," he murmured, and Rose felt her embarrassment ebb away.

Alistair slid one long, slim finger inside of her, enjoying the sweet music of her gasp. She was wet and slick and so tight that he feared he might hurt her if he was not certain to prepare her thoroughly. It would be his pleasure to do so, however, and he began a gentle in-and-out rhythm with his finger.

"Oh... oh that's lovely," Rose whimpered.

Alistair smiled and, without removing the one finger that he had buried inside of her, he gently brushed against the sweet bud at the top of her slit that was the heart of her feminine pleasure.

"Oh-OH," Rose cried as he did so. A jolt of sweet pleasure had rushed through her, fanning out from the points at which Alistair had his hands and spreading to her womb and her breasts, all the way to her fingertips and toes.

"Did you like that?" he asked, softly.

"Oh yes, please," she said, somewhat incoherently.

Alastair grinned though he knew she could not see it. She was receptive and responsive and beautiful and young, and he could only hope that he would be able to keep up with her. She was perfect in every way, and he would see her come apart a thousand times and never be satisfied. He applied himself to his work, gentle, glancing pressure over her clitoris, a second finger and, eventually, a third inside of her, curled forward to a spot that he had been introduced to once in his youth and never forgotten. He played her like a harp and, finally, when she cried out his name in ecstasy and her internal muscles clamped down on his fingers like a vice, he allowed himself his pride.

He brought her down slowly, gently and, when she was relaxed against the mattress, he removed his fingers from her.

He rose and helped her pull off her chemise, leaving her naked and flushed on the counterpane. He could hardly take his eyes from her as he removed his own boots and stockings and trousers and stood naked before her, awaiting her judgement.

Rose sat up to look at her husband as God had made him. He was lightly tanned at his face and arms, but his chest and legs were paler, though not as pale as she. He had dark hair up his arms and across his chest and stomach, trailing to a nest of curls, out from which jutted his manhood. She knew all of the terms, both from the medical texts and those whispered in the dormitories that she had shared with the other drivers in France, but none of them seemed to do justice to him. They were too silly or too clinical or too crass.

"Well?" Alistair asked after what seemed a very long time.

Rose looked up at him, surprised to find him looking vulnerable. The foolish man. He had nothing to fear. "You are the most beautiful man that I have ever seen."

Alistair's face softened, slightly. "And you are the most beautiful woman. May I make love to you, my sweet Rose?"

"I thought you had already begun," she said, her sweet tone belying the wicked grin that she was giving him.

"So I have my wife. So I have."

He crawled across the bed toward her and pressed her gently into the mattress with a kiss. He roved his hands over her and found one of her breasts, spanning it with his large hand so that it fit neatly into his palm. Rose gasped into his kiss when he took he brushed his thumb over her sensitive nipple and moaned as he applied pressure between his forefinger and thumb.

He broke the kiss when he could no longer stand allowing his fingers all of the joy and brought his mouth down to her nipple and swirled his tongue across it. He loved the sound of Rose's groan as he sucked her in and applied gentle pressure with his teeth. She gripped the back of his head and held him as though he might stop- as though he might ever want to. His fingers found her abandoned breast and massaged that one as well before, eventually, switching sides and paying that one the same attention he had done to its mate.

Eventually Alistair made his way back up to his wife's neck and kissed and licked the pulse point that fluttered at its base. He allowed his hand to slip down, across her soft, gently rounded stomach to the curls at the apex of her thighs and began, gently, to stroke against her again. She was wet and warm and he could not stand to wait any longer.

"My sweet Rose, oh Rose," he whispered, moving his mouth from her throat to her ear. "May I? Please, my Rose."

He was near incoherent, but her response was just as much.

"Yes, oh please, yes!"

He shifted so that his hips were between her thighs, gently spreading them wider to grant himself better access. As the blunt tip of him brushed the dampness there, he realized that he should warn her.

"My Rose, please listen to me, it might hurt, just for a moment, or it might hurt very badly. I hope not, but please, tell me to stop and I will stop, do you understand?"

"Yes... please... please Doctor," she moaned, and he could not stand it any longer.

He pushed into her slowly, trying to allow her to adjust to the size of him as he did so. He barely felt the resistance when it came, and as he watched Rose's face, she wrinkled her nose, slightly as he pushed through, but gave no other sign of distress.

When Alistair was seated fully inside of her, surrounded by her warmth and sweetness, he stopped.

"Are you all right, Rose? Tell me when I can move, my precious girl."

"It's wonderful," she breathed, "having you inside me. It feels wonderful. Oh Alistair... I love you so."

He kissed her. He kissed her because English did not have the proper breadth to express what needed to be expressed. Because he needed to feel her heart, beating beside his. Because it was too much and too little and too powerful for him to speak, so he kissed her instead.

And he began to move. Long, slow strokes that built on the passions that they had already stoked. Alistair coaxed her to wrap her legs around his waist, deepening his penetration and making her gasp. Higher and higher the flames rose, and Alistair could feel himself getting close, but he did not want to tip over that precipice alone. He wanted his Rose there, holding his hand the whole way.

He reached between them to press a thumb to that sweet spot at their joining and, after only a moment, he felt her convulse around him, her fingernails digging into his back and her moans intensifying.

One stroke and another, and he was done as well, emptying into her with a groan and an oath gasped against her neck.

When, finally, they both drifted back to Earth, Alistair rolled them over to a more comfortable position with Rose's head resting on his shoulder.

"I love you," she murmured, sleepily into his skin.

"I love you," he answered, kissing her hair.

It was the beginning of their forever, and he couldn't wait to start.


	12. Epilogue 2: This war would end wars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The amazingly wonderful Veritascara's birthday is today, and in honour of that joyous occasion, I've written this final installment of this story for her. I've had the prompt in my files for an age.
> 
> Happy birthday, lovely!

**The lovely and wonderful Veritascara's birthday is today, and so in honour of that auspicious occasion, I offer this final epilogue to an old favourite of hers.**

**Happy birthday, Lovely!**

* * *

 

_Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind? In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined? And though you died back in 1916, in that faithful heart you're forever nineteen.  Or are you a stranger without even a name, enclosed forever behind a glass pane, in an old photograph, torn and battered and stained and faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?_

"What's that, Mama?"

Rose opened her eyes to see a pair of dark-lashed brown eyes looking at her from much closer than she'd expected.

"Amelia!" she cried in surprise, which caused her daughter to start back in equal shock. "Goodness, darling, I'm sorry. I was… thinking."

She'd been praying, in point of fact. Rose was not, by her nature, a religious woman, but the air raids had made her into one. It always reminded her of the old aphorism that there are no atheists in foxholes.

During the war that was supposed to have ended all wars, she'd learned what prayer meant, and had prayed to the gods- politician and general and horrible, ephemeral hope. Many things had changed in twenty-some years, but not that. When the mortars fell, Rose prayed.

"It's a book of photographs, sweetheart," she said, soothingly. She relaxed her legs from where they had been curled against her chest, protecting her and the album in her arms.

"Can I-" Amelia began, but the sound of two pairs of clattering feet on the steps of the bomb shelter interrupted her and her brothers, David and Matthew, appeared then.

"It'll start any moment," David said, his brown eyes wide and his thin face pale.

"Where is-" Rose began, sitting up.

"He'll be down in a moment, he says," Matthew answered the unasked question. "He said not to let you come up, no matter what. You're to stay safe down here."

All three of her children watched Rose's face go from pale and scared to irritated and stubborn (if still pale) in a moment, and David smiled. She looked at her two boys, both standing at the bottom of the stairs, both taller than her, and both under orders to keep her in place.

"Bloody man," she murmured subsiding back against the wall. "If the Germans don't kill him, I might. Come sit then, you two, I won't go looking for him."

The boys crossed the room to her, the pair of them as skinny as storks. David, at 17, was already nearly as tall as his father and still growing. Matthew, poor lamb, took more after her and would be lucky to top five feet ten- he was an inch short at 15. They both had their father's dark hair and bright smile. David had brown eyes, like hers, though darker and larger. Matthew's eyes had come out a greenish colour that was light enough to be mistaken for his father's bright blue when seen from a distance, but were uniquely his own when viewed close-to.

They settled themselves in front of her and Amelia- younger than her brothers by several years and a surprise to both of her parents in more ways than one- returned to her question.

"Can I see the pictures in the book?" she asked, insinuating her small warm body under Rose's arm.

Rose smiled in spite of her worry. Her Amelia was very much like Rose's friend Donna had been- she wanted what she wanted and would brook no argument about it. Stubborn red-heads, the pair of them. Sometimes Rose missed Donna with sharp ache in her chest. After the war, she had spent a short amount of time in a sanitarium, but in spite of having forgotten everything about the war, she seemed to have no other ill-effects. Rose couldn't write her, but she knew that Donna was well at least, and she had her Amelia to remind her.

"Yes, all right," Rose said, with one more worried glance at the stairs. She flipped open the cover to a page with a woman in a white silk gown and a man in a black suit standing in formal dignity surrounded by white flowers.

"She's pretty," Amelia said, reaching out a fingertip toward the page.

"That's your Granny," Rose said, deflecting the finger before it could leave a print on the photograph.

"Granny Jackie?" David asked, frowning at the picture. "Scarcely looks like her."

"Grandad Pete looks the same though," Matthew said, indicating the man next to her.

Rose flipped the page over to a more recent photograph of her parents, taken in their new London house. They had sold the estate in the years after the Great War.

The next page had a portrait of a young boy of approximately 12 years.

"That's your uncle Tony," Rose said, nodding toward the little towhead. "Many years ago, of course."

The following page was a young man in military uniform- Tony Tyler taken just before leaving for the continent only the year before.

"Have you heard from Uncle Tony recently?" David asked. He looked up from the book to see a crease between his mother's brows and immediately regretted his question. "Not that it matters," he said, quickly, running a hand through his dark hair, making it stand up at the ends. "I'm sure he's fine, Mum."

Rose shook her head. "Not in a month, but the mail isn't very reliable just now." She glanced at the stairs again, and sighed before turning the next page.

Three pages and three photos of the children who sat around her, all taken at age 5. Amelia's had only been taken the year before.

"The most precious pictures I own," Rose said, smiling at her children.

The boys smiled back but Amelia, impatient, reached out and turned the next page.

This one held a photograph of a man in the army uniform of the previous war to end all wars. A light-eyed, dark-haired man with a grim mein and a long, roman nose.

"Whozat?" Amelia asked, frowning at the photo.

"That's your papa," Rose said, surprised.

"That doesn't look like Daddy," Amelia said, turning golden eyes that were so like her mother's toward her.

"Sure it does," David said, peering closer at the photo. "Look at his eyes. Like Matty's here."

Matthew rolled those light-coloured eyes. "And that nose- David has that one."

"Humph, what about those ears then, Dumbo?"

Rose suppressed her smile. Matty did wear his hair long to hide the ears that, like his father's, stuck out a bit too far from the side of his head.

"He's very handsome," Rose said, gently brushing her fingertips over the photograph of her husband. The gold ring on her left hand glinted in the dim light.

"It doesn't look anything like Daddy," Amelia reiterated, stubbornly.

"Why do you say that, darling?" Rose asked, surprised.

"He's not smiling," Amelia said. "Daddy always smiles."

Rose couldn't quite help the shock of tears that came to her eyes. He'd hardly changed, physically, in the decades they'd been together, but some things  _had_ changed so very much.

"It was a different time, my darling," Rose said, her voice thick. She hugged her wee Amelia close and rested a cheek on her sleek, red head. "There was a war then, like this one, but instead of being at home, your papa was there, fighting. Like your Uncle Tony. It's very hard to smile when you're a soldier."

David, shook his head. He'd seen the album before and reached out to turn the page. The photograph there showed a rank of young women, all grinning like mad, dressed like men and covered in dirt.

"Whozat?" Amelia asked, lifting her head from her mother's shoulder.

"Soldiers who smiled," David said, glancing at his mother.

"Those were my friends," Rose said, softly, brushing a fingertip along the edge of the photograph. "We were there too, we didn't fight- women aren't allowed- but we did what we could. That's Martha there, you know her."

"Auntie Martha!" Amelia cried in delight, peering closer at the album to see the blurry photo of Rose's best friend.

"That's Tegan," Rose said, indicating the next woman in the photo. "She lives in Australia now. And there's Dorothy- she called herself Ace. She's in Canada."

"And that's you," Matthew said, and he was right. She was next in line, arms wrapped around the women on either side of her.

"You're beautiful, Mama," Amelia said, turning those large, lovely eyes to her mother again.

"Most beautiful woman in the world," came a voice from the stairs.

Rose looked up sharply to find Alistair at the bottom of the stairs, a satchel over one shoulder and a thermal flask in one hand.

"Thought I'd bring down a bit of food," he said, smiling at her.

Matty bounced up and took the satchel from his father, bringing it to the circle of light and comfort on the floor and started digging through it, handing out sandwiches as he went.

"You know," Rose said, mildly, "you're supposed to go straight to shelter when the sirens go off."

"Never was much of one for rules," he said, grinning that bright, mad grin that hadn't changed in twenty years.

Rose sighed. Sometimes she woke in the morning to think, just for a moment, that she was sharing her bed with a stranger. Her bright-eyed, broken soldier couldn't possibly be the man who slept so peacefully at her side. Other days she could swear she woke again in her bridal bed for the way he touched her and the way he looked at her hadn't changed in the slightest.

And sometimes she saw him smile, and couldn't help but bless the years since the trenches. The shadows behind his eyes weren't gone, not always, but they were lighter. He was lighter.

"Your mother is lying to you, you know," Alistair said, lifting Amelia into his arms and sitting beside Rose, settling his daughter on his lap.

Amelia blinked up at him in surprise, and the two boys stopped their squabbling over sandwiches at this announcement.

"I most certainly am not!" Rose said, indignant.

"You are," he said, a wicked smile beginning on his face. "It's not really that it's hard to smile when you're a soldier," he said, shaking his head. "It's that I was a grumpy bugger and thought there was nothing worth smiling over."

He reached over and flipped another page of the book to show another photograph. The pretty blonde girl from the previous photograph was out of her dirty trousers and dressed in pink silk. The dour man from the military portrait stood at her side, and the pair of them were smiling.

"I found something to smile about," he said, blue eyes meeting gold in a look that hadn't changed or faded through war and peace, sickness and health. It was love, as it had always been, from the first moment he'd saved her life, and in the golden glory of her eyes, he found it reflected back to him, as he always had.

The bombs fell and fear reigned across the country and the world, but love conquered as men never can.


End file.
